Bloat Monopoly

   Bloat monopoly is an exclusive control over or [1]de-facto ownership of
   [2]software or even a whole area of technology not by legal means but by
   means of [3]bloat, or generally just abusing bloat in ways that lead to
   gaining monopolies, e.g. by establishing standards or even legal
   requirements (such as the EU mandatory content filters) which only the
   richest may conform to. Even if given software is [4]FOSS (that is its
   source code is public and everyone has basic legal rights to it), it can
   be malicious due to bloat, for example it can still be made practically
   controlled exclusively by the developer because the developer is the only
   one with sufficient resources and/or know-how to be able to execute the
   basic rights such as meaningful modifications of the software, which goes
   against the very basic principle of [5]free software. Bloat monopoly is
   seeks to maximize [6]freedom distance.

   Example: take a look at the [7]web and how [8]Google is gaining control
   over it by getting the search engine monopoly. It is very clear web along
   with web browsers has been becoming bloated to ridiculous levels -- this
   is not a coincidence, bloat is pushed by [9]corporations such as Google to
   eliminate possible emerging competition. If practically all websites
   require [10]JavaScript, [11]CSS, [12]HTTPS and similar nonsense, it is
   becoming much more difficult to crawl them and create a web index, leaving
   the possibility to crawl the web mostly to the rich, i.e. those who have
   enough money, time and know-how to do this. Alongside this there is the
   web browser bloat -- as websites have become extremely complex, it is also
   extremely complex to make and maintain a web browser, which is why there
   is only a few of them, all controlled (despite FOSS licenses) by
   corporations and malicious groups, one of which is Google itself. For
   these reasons Google loves bloat and encourages it, e.g. simply by ranking
   bloated webpages better in their search results, and of course by other
   means (sponsoring, lobbying, advertising, ...).

   Bloat monopoly is [13]capitalism's circumvention of [14]free licenses and
   taking advantage of their popularity. With bloat monopoly capitalists can
   stick a [15]FOSS license to their software, get an automatic approval
   ([16]openwashing) of most "open-source" fanbois as well as their free work
   time, while really staying in control almost to the same degree as with
   [17]proprietary software.

   Bloat monopolies are currently mostly built on top of "[18]security"
   obsession leading to hardcore [19]update culture. It is very well known
   that complex, bloated software is almost synonymous with security
   vulnerabilities -- bloat monopolies (who often claim to "care about
   security") love security vulnerabilities because that's what allows them
   to sustain the monopoly, the business of "keeping security", and that is
   why they make their code bloated, i.e. doing exact opposite of "caring
   about security" -- a huge, gigantic codebase will inevitably contain an
   ocean of vulnerabilities. No one is even thinking about ever fixing all of
   them, the mindset today is just this: there exists a huge pool of
   vulnerabilities and they get randomly discovered by "bad hackers", we just
   have to keep quickly fixing them as they appear so that "you are
   protected". I.e. bloat monopoly software makes it so that you cannot take
   some stable version and just keep using it without updates, the software
   will even refuse to work when it's too old, it will justify this as
   "protecting you". So this requires a team of people constantly watching
   the software 24/7 and fixing any vulnerability that pop up as soon as
   possible so that "the bad hackers don't have enough time to abuse the
   vulnerabilities" -- here it's not possible to have one or two volunteers
   who will be fixing security patches "maybe in a month or two" when they
   have time for it. It is therefore impossible for anyone to fork the
   software because then he'd have to start paying the same team of people
   who will be doing the same police works. Non-commercial communities of
   volunteers are by this takes out of the game, even if the code is "open
   source". This is why software is kept bloated and therefore vulnerable in
   terms of security by those who claim to "care about security" -- it's the
   [20]antivirus_paradox of capitalism: they don't care about security, they
   care about keeping the monopoly by creating vulnerabilities which they
   then keep fixing.

   At the time of writing this if you want to compile the so called "[21]open
   source" [22]Android, you will need a supercomputer at home
   (https://source.android.com/docs/setup/start/requirements) with at least
   400 GB of space, 64 GB of RAM (remember, this is a MINIMUM requirement!),
   a [23]modern 64 bit CPU with multiple cores (Google uses 72 core
   machines!), and many hours of computational time. How long before we need
   a million dollar supercomputer to compile an "open source" program? Now
   ask yourself, is this still real freedom?

   Examples of bloat monopoly include mainstream web browsers ([24]furryfox,
   [25]chromium, ...), [26]Android, [27]Linux, [28]Blender etc. This software
   is characteristic by its difficulty to be even compiled, yet alone
   understood, maintained and meaningfully modified by a lone average
   programmer, by its astronomical [29]maintenance cost that is hard to pay
   for volunteers, and by aggressive [30]update culture.

Links:
1. de_facto.md
2. software.md
3. bloat.md
4. foss.md
5. free_software.md
6. freedom_distance.md
7. www.md
8. google.md
9. corporation.md
10. js.md
11. css.md
12. https.md
13. capitalism.md
14. free.md
15. foss.md
16. openwashing.md
17. proprietary.md
18. security.md
19. update_culture.md
20. antivirus_paradox.md
21. open_source.md
22. android.md
23. modern.md
24. firefox.md
25. chromium.md
26. android.md
27. linux.md
28. blender.md
29. maintenance.md
30. update_culture.md