As I was explaining in another comment, if you or other people or other companies don't like something, they can always build something better. If that something is good and provides more value to some people than the popular alternative, then it will take off. That's how the free market works, that's how Android became popular.

Patents lawsuits on the other hand are a loophole of capitalism, preventing the emergence of competition. I haven't been worried in a long time that Windows is still king of desktop operating systems, because Windows is no longer relevant because of technological disruption. I'm not worried if Facebook eliminates all forms of privacy controls, as teenagers are already preferring other platforms precisely because of privacy issues (e.g. who wants their grandma to see their drunk-at-party photos?). But what if Facebook will acquire enough patents as to nuke all alternative social networks?

Now that's a reason to worry. And this outrage is entirely justified. I also don't like your apathy and your cynicism. All the freedoms and luxuries you enjoy today come either from technological disruption, or from people that were outraged and that decided to do something about it. I also don't understand your position on this matter - if you agree that patents are bad, then your cynicism does nothing else but to waist other people's time.

"Decided to do something about it"

I am against "outrage" for outrage sake. If you are outraged but not willing to do anything about it, then it is worse than ambivalence. You are wasting energy and reducing the value of outrage as a deterrent.

Outrage would be a useful if it resulted in action. So anytime there is outrage, the offending party would retrace their steps. Because they would be aware "shit is about to go down!"

So if the first time Twitter/Facebook/Apple indiscriminately fucked over developers, out rage resulted in something that affected them, things would have been different today.

>I also don't understand your position on this matter. if you agree that patents are bad, then your cynicism does nothing else but to waist(sic) other people's time

I am against the abuse of patents and this is an abuse of patents. I am hoping my "cynical post" will offend hackers (who have leverage) enough to say "how dare you say I am all talk!" and take action.

Personally, as a web developer, I never liked third-party APIs, I stayed away from proprietary platforms that are hard to replace, always preferring open-source alternatives or alternatives based on standards, I use Ubuntu Linux on my workstations, I encrypt my documents that I store in Dropbox and I use Facebook & Twitter with great care.

I also prefer Android both as a user and as a developer, in spite of Google's disregard for Romanian developers (i.e. we can't sell apps on Google Play, we can only distribute free apps), but that's only because with Android you're not tied to Google Play. Plus I'm rooting for Firefox OS taking off, as even with 5% of the market, it will push things forward by developing and standardizing new web APIs.

Being cynical about these things is what changes nothing, or rather it changes things for the worse. In countries where everyone is resigned into the idea that every government official is always going to be corrupt and every company will always be criminal are usually very poor.

This isn't a war that is won or lost in the short term. We're all in this for long haul, we have to live with it and still try to move the balance in the right direction.

If you invest your time and money into say, an iPhone application, you're heavily supporting the Apple store. Once you've done that, the fact that you've expressed your disagreement with Apple policies on online forums is more or less irrelevant.

Look at Facebook: there is a rather large number of people complaining about their privacy policies, yet they keep making them worst every year. That's because people complain, but don't quit.

But what I'm saying is that depending on your field of work, you may not have much of a choice other than to support the dominant players in the industry. No one should feel under any moral obligation to forego 50% of their income every time NastBigCorp X does something nasty.

It's useful to protest and still keep doing what you do. Maybe down the road there's an opportunity to hurt them without hurting yourself even more. Protesting shows there is a desire for something different.

however it is enough if a small minority takes action and great things can happen even then. for example gnu and linux.

ive not seen many people who can be inconvienienced and use linux freedom software all the time. but ive seen some. they have made a change, not yet visible for the masses but its there.

its those few who take the first steps. i think you should too. do it. even if its only you.

i did that many years ago and couldnt be happier now.