Our era has been characterized by the tremendous rise of software and, consequently, its massive adoption. However, the fundamental piece of technology in earlier times, specifically before the 19th century, was hardware. Having control over the hardware meant having control over the technology and its capabilities. However, since the mid-twentieth century, with the rise of computing and, as a direct consequence, the rise of software as a commercial product, control of technology has been totally separated from hardwar.

WARNING a lot of text

TLDR: Free and open source software is our most powerful tool against corporate social control and manipulation. And I expect more massive migrations to the Fediverse and more people using FOSS alternatives.

This was an essay that I recently wrote and I wanted to share it with you guys. Keep in mind that it was translated from Spanish (my native language) to English with LibreTranslate, although I fixed a lot of errors, there still might be some. I had to put it in a Notesnook (my note taking app, and of course open source) public link, because it looks like the Lemmy backend can’t handle more than 10k characters (sadly). Also keep in mind that I know little about politics. This essay can also serve as an introduction to the FOSS philosophy.