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Comment by ameen | Hacker News Reader

While the community is ready to dismiss anything Canonical does, they also seem to overlook the work Canonical has done. Unity is far from perfect, but it is functional.

Also, the whole issue of inclusion of Amazon links could be solved with a single command, "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping".

And it's ridiculous that Canonical gets flak for trying out a new revenue stream (one that can easily be removed if its bothersome), while ChromeOS is championed (which essentially makes revenue off of your web usage, targeting ads, etc.)

If the community tried to be a little less abrasive and actually held reasonable level-headed discussions instead of being dismissive we could actually get somewhere.

Infact I'd argue that it's Canonical's leadership is helping since it has succeeded in bringing generally non-Linux businesses over to Ubuntu - Valve bringing over Steam, Spotify alpha, Rdio, etc.

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There is no way anyone could justify inclusion of Amazon ads. Creating backdoor for direct snooping by Amazon is just atrocious. That being said. In my personal experience Ubuntu has not been a community driven distribution for at least half a decade. Most community members spend their time justifying actions of Canonical and community leaders explaining and backing Canonical instead of representing community. I also think Mark Shuttleworth is a strong leader and visionary and while we discuss merits and demerits he might actually succeed in what he set out to be. At the end of the day, if we want to take Linux mainstream we have to start treating it as a product.

There's no Amazon back door. The search string gets sent to Canonical, they search amazon using that string and return results with their snazin affiliate link.

>Unity is far from perfect, but it is functional.

If that's the best you can say about it, then Canonical failed.

Unity is functional — you can use it. Its problem is that it's designed to meet the needs of a mostly hypothetical group of people that Canonical hopes will want to use it someday. That's a long-term proposition, and a valid gamble to take — but I don't think it's going to succeed. More importantly for me, I don't care whether it does or not, because I'm neither Unity's nor Ubuntu's target market any more.

One of the things I have tried to do the last decade or so is set up Linux for the "non leets" like my mom, girlfriends, friends / family etc. This is Canonical's target audience and not a single one of them likes the Unity interface. While not a scientific study I just don't think it's hitting the mark.

Lately, I've been putting MINT on a few people's machines, and the love the "windows like" feel (necessary for the transition) and it's still based on Debian and very solid.

Mint Cinamon or Mate?

It's leagues better than the train-wreck that is Gnome 3. It's functional and doesn't get in the way of my work. What more do I need it for?

"I don't like X about Ubuntu" -- Response from Ubuntu user: "It's easy; all you have to do is apt-get ..."

"I don't like Amazon lens about Ubuntu" -- Response from fellow Ubuntu user: "Yea, this sucks, I think I'm not going to use Ubuntu anymore"

I don't like Amazon lens either (there isn't even an Amazon.ro so it's mostly unusable for me), but they have to make money somehow.

>I don't like Amazon lens either (there isn't even an Amazon.ro so it's mostly unusable for me), but they have to make money somehow.

Find another business model, this one sucks.

I know the parent comment will be downvoted, but I'll reply anyway. I'd like to hear how this "sucks". One could argue they may track you, invasion of privacy or that it's "just the beginning" and will lead to more adware. Those are what I'd call minor complaints. You can say you think it looks bad, or that it slows down your system, or that you'd would never use it. Those are even more minor as you can uninstall it in less words than your comment.

But think about this. Nearly everyone shops on Amazon. This is the easiest way to give money to support this OS. People all say "I'd pay for it" but that never works. Instead... going to buy something on Amazon? Use Unity, and support your OS. Dead simple, and you don't have to touch your wallet.

The fact that the OS comes with spyware out of the box is just a minor complaint? Okay..

It sucks because it stinks of authoritarianism and selfishness. How do users benefit? How does the community benefit? Why are you trying to justify that users should be glad that they're being spied on and spammed?

How does the amazon shopping lens spy on users? The search string gets sent to Canonical, they search amazon using that string and return results with their Amazon affiliate link.

It sucks because it isn't there to enhance the user experience. Anecdotally I never once thought that performing a desktop search should return me Amazon search result (why just Amazon? Why not internet search results if anything? - which is kind of what happens when you perform search on Jelly Bean). It feels cheap, and clutters a visible portion of your desktop UI with ads. I haven't seen anybody like it or praise this because it's so transparently only about revenue, user experience be damned. Your argument for using it amounts to essentially charity (i.e. use it to support your OS). At least with Unity, I can hate it but respect that they were trying to build something new. This was only about revenue. Worse, Canonical, comically tried to argue that it isn't. Nobody bought it.

I actually want Canonical to be successful. I want them to be profitable and I wish they could find a way to make money without resorting to stupid gimmicks like this.

I buy things on Amazon twice a year (if that). I have a feeling I'm closer to the average PC user than not.

How is it unreasonable to propose making the Amazon ads opt-in? Sure it ruins their dreams of guaranteed revenue streams but at least it'll be a compromise.

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