You're totally being factious in favor of free software. Not facetious, though, I agree.
To your actual point, what hampers free software more than anything imo is a lack of focus on usability. People buy Apple because, less now than a few yeara ago but still the vast majority of the time, it Just Works. People buy Creative Cloud for much the same reason, and Office 365, and whatever other proprietary products you care to name, because they mostly work reliably, and it's not hard to find help when they don't.
This is the standard free software needs to meet in order to compete. The reason it doesn't, I think, is because the economic incentive to do so is not there. That's not a problem I know how to solve, and I wish I did, because then I'd be able to advocate free software (and hardware!) for general use, as I would strongly prefer to do. As the matter stands now, though, I can't do so without critically damaging my credibility with those among whom I would so advocate.
That's a problem that needs to be solved. How does it become so?
> "I can't do so without critically damaging my credibility with those among whom I would so advocate."
I know. I've have had friends who I installed linux on their computer then call me in a few months describing some strange problem, probably related to a broken update, and then in a few months I cringe when I see them buying the latest Apple product but understand why. I worry they think less of free software after that experience.
ElementaryOS seems to be going in the right direction. But I suppose the main "thing that works" is to have a team of people that actually enjoy making software usable by the masses rather than solving X for their own needs.
That's a rare sort of intrinsic motivation, though, and tends not to last long in the face of frequent contact with users who, having their own situations to deal with, reasonably tend more often to complain about software that fails to make their lives easier than compliment that which does. That's where extrinsic motivation needs to come into play, but it's not much on offer in the context we're considering.
To your actual point, what hampers free software more than anything imo is a lack of focus on usability. People buy Apple because, less now than a few yeara ago but still the vast majority of the time, it Just Works. People buy Creative Cloud for much the same reason, and Office 365, and whatever other proprietary products you care to name, because they mostly work reliably, and it's not hard to find help when they don't.
This is the standard free software needs to meet in order to compete. The reason it doesn't, I think, is because the economic incentive to do so is not there. That's not a problem I know how to solve, and I wish I did, because then I'd be able to advocate free software (and hardware!) for general use, as I would strongly prefer to do. As the matter stands now, though, I can't do so without critically damaging my credibility with those among whom I would so advocate.
That's a problem that needs to be solved. How does it become so?