Not communicating that there are alternatives to their services?
I don’t really think it’s their responsibility to spoon feed alternatives to their customers; they’re not being anticompetitive, they’re not being deceptive, they’re not blocking alternatives.
I think your requirements here are unfair and kind of irrational
The value proposition is ease of use and integration of these theming utilities.
I honestly think this monetisation strategy of theirs is a non-issue.
People who want a streamlined experience have the option of paying for that, people who want the option of doing it all themselves have that opportunity too.
I don’t think that’s “taking advantage of vulnerable people”
The options still exist for people to learn and theming is incredibly inconsequential.
They’re monetising to support development in a minimally impactful way, that is completely optional, and I think that’s a good thing.
I’m trying to quit, again
I think Zorin is a pretty solid choice for people with no Linux experience tbh.
It’s at least going to feel familiar
I think it’s pretty arguable that it does.
Not being algorithmically driven, the absence of an incentive for incendiary content goes a lot way to change the tone of the spaces.
Not to mention all the other ways the platform is operationally different from these other for profit platforms.
Why you lumping Mastodon in with that lot? 🥺
I’m very new to contributing in that kind of style, git and code is scary to me; I’m more here for research, recommendations and element design.
What would be the best way to contribute non-coding expertise? I always feel like I’m imposing in these kind of spaces when I want to offer advice and insights as they come from such a different sphere
I think something to focus on would be a clean and easy-to-understand explanation of Lemmy and how the instances federate together.
This is still something Mastodon is struggling with when it comes to onboarding. Even for the technologically minded, it can be a steep curve and there are potentially a lot of other people who will balk at the walls of text and technical jargon.
Obviously, it all can’t be fixed overnight, but I feel a lot can be done to improve the onboarding for users without overloading them with information.
Maybe a small step-by-step wizard-style system to help someone find and instance and explain Lemmy in bite-sized chunks of info would be a good first step.
Professionally I’m a UX Designer and Business Design consultant and I’d love to be able to lend expertise to the project!
So what’s your issue then? Zorin has a free version that people can opt for if they want