While I sit here having my morning cup of coffee I see how ignorant and out of touch society as a whole has become. Everyday you hear more and more about Steve Jobs and his passing, while a great man in his own right he was not the man he was made to out to be. While his marketing and repackaging of technology made it more popular he was by no means an innovator of technology, he was a marketing genius. In a week of Steve Jobs passing a true innovator and world changer by the name of Dennis Ritchie passed and he has gone widely unnoticed by the media and the public and its more than disheartening to see we reward wealth and marketing over innovation and progression. Without Dennis Ritchie we would not be able to use nearly all of the current technology we do now, including apple products,PC’s, games, phones etc… I truly wish the media and public would give him the credit and acknowledgement of what a loss his passing was…
The sad part is that we do this daily and most people won’t look beyond their own nose to see how duped by these companies they actually have become. It’s sickening to see people and corporations spending hundreds of thousands or even millions on operating systems and office suites and art programs, etc. If people took the time to look they could see the they get less by buying and supporting these companies, but they never do they just buy whats advertised even if its horribly inferior, less stable and costs tons of money. We allow the marketing to direct our lives and empty our pockets for nothing. Think how much money a large company could save simply by switching from Microsoft office alone. Society as a whole needs to support our open source developers and products otherwise technology will continue to trickle out in stead of being pushed and driven. We need to push the technologies not the marketers and take control of the direction and availability of the technologies we want and deserve. Below I’ve listed examples of things that most of America is being duped on daily. Research things for yourself, don’t just buy it because that’s what everyone one else has. If we do not learn from our mistakes we will continue our cycles of ignorance. All I have to say is give the free open source products a try, you’ll be surprised how good they are and how much your pockets still have in them. Compare them for yourself and help break the cycle of ignorance and help direct the evolution of technology by your own choice not some marketing specialist.
examples:
Microsoft office costs $119 – $499 per user where as Libre Office or Open Office or dozens of others that are equally as powerful if not more powerful and free so why would one would pay $499 for the same abilities?
Then there are things like Adobe Photoshop That cost from $99 – $1900 when you could use Gimp that does the same thing. Again why pay hundreds and thousands of dollars for nothing more than the sake of throwing money away.