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Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

Here’s the deal. Pay for your software or someone else will.

If you use FOSS then donate or the developer might have to pivot into adware. Or abandonware.

If the HN crowd can’t afford to financially support the FOSS they use then who will? You’re a huge group of SV types. Probably amongst the top representation of shareholders in some of the most valuable companies on the planet. Feel shame if you’re not supporting the tech ecosystem supporting your literal bottom line.

Or show that you’re an actual entrepreneur/capitalist and provide the pricey RH style support of whatever it is and make it official.

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While I fully agree with the sentiment here, paying or donating doesn't necessarily prevent ads. Some software and entertainment providers just jam ads into everything, even for paying customers.

But yes, I do agree that paying for FOSS should be the norm, where possible. And hopefully this will indeed prevent ads in many cases.

It's a shame that advertising has become so normalised that is reflexively added to so many fledgling projects. Most startups fail, but there are always others being born in their place, churning out more ads into the gap.

Another niggle, which is admittedly at a tangent from what I took as your main point. Not everyone in the "HN crowd" is in a position to donate. Recently I read a comment here from someone who said they're homeless, for example. But for those HNers who are employed, yes, donation to FOSS should be far more common.

If there’s money in forking a project that just added advertisement solely to remove the ads and take donations away then there’s an avenue of counterbalance.

And of course there’s an inappropriate audience to my original comment. That’s life.

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33175839

> Some software and entertainment providers just jam ads into everything, even for paying customers.

Sorry, but who are you referring to?

Cable companies. But that fight should have been had in the 80s I think.

Are you referring to commercials on TV?

part of the deal with cable tv a few decades ago was that the cable channels didn't have ads because you paid for them directly every month. (local stations obviously had their usual ads).

Hulu is one, if you need an example.

Mmm, indeed. Although they began as a free ad-supported service. Certainly a peculiar case.

They have an ad-free tier still - it's just more expensive.

And it's still not "ad" free. They show all sorts of material that they can only license with ads in place in that tier.

And that's not even going into the whole "It's not an ad - it's a promotion for another one of our shows" crock of bullshit they pull.

Microsoft was putting ads in the Start Menu for a while, if I remember correctly.

They stopped?

AFAICT you just have to pay enough: Windows Professional versions can switch all such stuff off, also control the installation of updates, reboots, etc.

Sure, but as far as I know, they haven't stopped loading up the home editions with trash.

Paramount+ has ads in both their Essential and Premium plans:

From https://help.paramountplus.com/s/article/PD-What-plans-are-a...:

Essential - Stream with limited commercial interruptions for $4.99/month

Premium (formerly Commercial Free - all the benefits remain the same!) Watch with no ads for just $9.99/month...live TV streams have commercials, and a few shows include brief promotional interruptions to keep you in the loop on new and upcoming Paramount+ programming

> and a few shows include brief promotional interruptions to keep you in the loop on new and upcoming Paramount+ programming

I absolutely hate this trend. Whenever Prime Video does it I just get annoyed and skip either way.

So, they want to force us back to torrenting.

Twist my arm, why don't you?

So every other Linux distro has more funding than canonical? Doubtful.

Canonical has half the revenue of Suse. Which is less than half Fed Hat... So yes they're third by a long shot and definitely least funded of the "commercial" distros.

You mean well. But I get very strong sense that huge number of folks here either are or like to be oblivious to the cost of things they like using. It could be software utils, IDEs, cloud storage, free tiers of various services, internet charges, piracy and so on.

I'm actually hyped by Ubuntu Pro. Might be a real alternative for SMB using Windows.

I have lost hope in Ubuntu. They should just complete there merger with Microsoft and get it over with. So many distros outperform Ubuntu with a fraction of the resources.

>> I have lost hope in Ubuntu. They should just complete there merger with Microsoft and get it over with. So many distros outperform Ubuntu with a fraction of the resources.

Ubuntu could be rebranded "Microsoft Linux" and WSL2 could begin full integration into Windows. Windows would really become "Windows subsystem for Linux" which would be a proprietary, fully-working version of WINE for compatibility with old Windows software. It has been speculated in the past, but it might be the future.

I don't think you get the big picture. The MS plan is to assimilate Linux into Windows to increase Windows' perfection. You will comply.

Resistance is futile:

https://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-news-rumors/4822...

https://jacobsalmela.com/2015/04/02/microsoft-windows-infect...

Or just the 16 free RHEL instances...per person ;)

I agree. Maybe in the donation drives, they should threaten ads if a target is not met. This might avoid this drastic step and surprise to users.

So your view is that Ubuntu has ads because Canonical is the least funded, most desperate maker of Linux distributions.

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