How Hard It Is
Found Songbird in a forum thread about iTunes alternatives and immediately thought: I could leave. Not that I was unhappy with Mac OS X, but there it was—an open-source media player designed to not extract money from me. And then the whole cascade: if I could switch that, why not the whole system? Ubuntu instead of this, goodbye to Apple, goodbye to the calculated ecosystem designed to make me feel good about paying.
I’ve got this voice inside me that wants out. Wants open source, wants Linux, wants nothing to do with corporations making billions on elegant interfaces and good design. Hates that I love Apple. Hates it. So I’m one download away from Ubuntu, one decision from nuking the whole setup, and I’m thinking about it differently now—actually thinking about doing it.
Then I look at what I’d lose. Safari tabs. Mail. Adium. All these small, beautiful things that just work. And the other voice gets loud: Do you actually want to spend hours fixing kernel bullshit just to prove something? Because switching would mean that for me. I’d be lying if I said I wanted Linux because it’s better at what I do. I don’t want it because the software’s superior. I want it because it’s freer. Except—is it? Isn’t Linux just as beholden to the same corporate powers? Ubuntu’s owned by Canonical. The distributions that matter are backed by the same money as Windows and Mac. So the rebellion collapses. The whole thing feels hollow.
I know I’m not going to switch. Not today, maybe not ever. And that bothers me more than actually using Apple bothers me. The cognitive dissonance is the thing that won’t quit. I want to believe in open source revolution, want to believe there’s an OS that isn’t compromised, but I also just want to work on something beautiful and functional. Apple owns that territory.
So I’m staying. With Mac OS X. The beautiful, expensive, corporate thing. At least I turned off the iTunes Store—that’s my gesture, my small rebellion that doesn’t cost me anything real. I even joined ATTAC, this anti-globalization group that doesn’t seem to know what it wants any better than I do. But there’s something honest about that too. Admitting you’re conflicted, that you can’t pull the trigger, that you’re complicit and you know it.