Network Effect is the biggest hurdle for sure. I think it it true for so many other services too. I think we can agree there is no real technical problem to solve, we only look at the technical problems because trying to “fix” the social and political issues is a lot harder. Digital Markets Act is supposed to address this but time will tell if it has any lasting impact (in the EU).

I’m trying to do a 3-2-1 but instead I’m doing a 4-3-0. Original is on SSD with scheduled backups to two separate HDs so that I have 3 copies on two different media (if SSD + HD counts as distinct enough) so then I added in BDR as an infrequent 4th manual copy for my most irreplaceable data (and I’m very strict with what counts as irreplaceable so that the total is just over 100GB at this point). Eventually I need to get a copy of the disks off site but for now they are in the basement.

I have no illusions about how long the BDRs will last. (Seems like it is anywhere between 100 days and 100 years).My aim is to just have another copy that is distinct from magnetic or flash storage. My plan is to burn new updated copies so that any data on an old disk will get burned to a newer disk at some point. Maybe in ten years I’ll abandon this approach but for now it makes me feel better.

I am so sorry! I took another look at SMS Import / Export and to my surprise it does support scheduled backups! I had seen it before and had overlooked that feature so disqualified it. I’m going to test it now but if you don’t hear back its probably because I made the switch without issue.

I saw this but its missing a key feature: daily backups. SMS Backup & Restore can make a backup every day then I can sync the file out to Nextcloud or similar. It also supports Dropbox if that’s your thing.

This and so many others that are irreplaceable because of the Network effect. Google Maps, Uber and so on…

However if you are looking for a self contained app to bring into the Foss ecosystem then I would recommend making a game that you like?

My first game that I bought on Google Play was Osmos making a version of this that is open source would make me happy…

SMS Backup & Restore? Unless there is an alternative that I’m missing? Play store link

Your average user is comparing the time to setup a new game vs a punch in the face, no contest punch in the face all day! Now if you are getting punched in the face for more than 5 hours then maybe they will start considering an alternative…

YunoHost is trying to make it easier than a synology NAS to install services and get them setup properly but I agree that to configure your network properly is difficult and everyone’s setup is different so specific knowledge is required.

The actual % numbers are probably not that important. Software developers and hardware manufacturers are looking for a critical mass of users of their product. So if 20% of the world switch from Windows to Linux but they are the 20% that only use a web browser then why would the compatibility landscape change? Adobe are not going to do the hard work to support Linux just because schools and libraries switch to Linux. Even if every government mandates using Linux for government offices would Cricut suddenly support Linux?

I think this is the only feature that matters. For a user switching away from Windows I would love to hear about the user experience between buying a system76 (or another Linux system seller) vs a Mac laptop. Complaining that Linux doesn’t work with your hardware is like complaining that the hackintosh that you built doesn’t work with your hardware.

Unfortunately this is mostly true…

I had a similar idea: Could search engines be broken up and distributed instead of being just a couple of monoliths?

Reading the HN thread, the short answer is: NO.

Still, its fun to imagine what it might look like if only…

I think the OP is looking for an answer to the problem of Google having a monopoly that gives them the power to make it impossible to be challenged. The cost to replicate their search service is just so astronomical that its basically impossible to replace them. Would the OP be satisfied if we could make cheaper components that all fit together to make a competing but decentralized search service? Breaking down the technical problems is just the first step, the basic concepts for me are:

Crawling -> Indexing -> Storing/host index -> Ranking

All of them are expensive because the internet is massive! If each of these were isolated but still interoperable then we get some interesting possibilities: Basically you could have many smaller specialized companies that can focus on better ranking algorithms for example.

• What if crawling was done by the owners of each website and then submitted to an index database of their choice? This flips the model around so things like robots.txt might become less relevant. Bad actors and spam however now don’t need any SEO tricks to flood a database or mislead as to their actual content, they can just submit whatever they like!. These concerns feed into the next step:
• What if there were standard indexing functions similar to how you have many standard hash functions. How a site is indexed plays an important role in how ranking will work (or not) later. You could have a handful of popular general purpose index algorithms that most sites would produce and then submit (e.g. keywords, images, podcasts, etc.) combined with many more domain specific indexing algorithms (e.g. product listings, travel data, mapping, research). Also if the functions were open standards then it would be possible for a browser to run the index function on the current page and compare the result to the submitted index listing. It could warn users that the page they are viewing is probably either spam or misconfigured in some way to make the index not match what was submitted.
• What if the stored indexes were hosted in a distributed way similar to DNS? Sharing the database would lower individual costs. Companies with bigger budgets could replicate the database to provide their users with a faster service. Companies with fewer resources would be able to use the publicly available indexes yet still be competitive.
• Enabling more competition between different ranking methods will hopefully reduce the effectiveness of SEO gaming (or maybe make it worse as the same content is repackaged for each and every index/rank combination). Ranking could happen locally (although this would probably not be efficient at all but that fact that it might even be possible at all is quite a novel thought)

Sigh enough daydreaming already…

Was just trying to watch the original Star Wars from when I was young and found out that it is simply not available for sale. My money is no good! Then I found this Project 4K77.