I think the focus on the shareholder perceptions is the core issue. It’s compounded by the short term interests of said shareholders.

You would, but making such a product is extremely expensive. And consumers will in general buy the cheaper not better product. Major investors know this, so spending on making a better product would actualy cause the stock price to go down. Maybe it would have paid off in the long run. But they want the stock price to go up now, not a year from now.

I tie it all into how a public company’s board has a fiduciary responsability to the shareholders legally. Which means they can (and often do) get sued for doing whats best for the customer over the shareholders. It sometimes clicks with people.
And many who don’t see it aren’t dumb per se. They are more or less refusing to see it because they would have to realize that they are the slaves or pawns, or cogs in the machine. And they are not in control of thier destiny. Thats a hard thing for a lot of people to swalllow. Especially since there isn’t much they can do about it.

Yes, but. If they add enough “special” things you need, that will reduce the number of average people and independent mechanics that will go through the trouble of getting all the “special” tools. Thier goal isn’t to stop you. It’s to inconvenience enough people so that they won’t bother. Which drives more business to thier shops, which in turn makes them more money. And since they are publicly traded, it doesn’t even have to actually make them money. Just make the market think it might.

Thats the problem. You can go through all the pain to move to an alternative, but eventually it enshitifys too. You could go open source, but those solutions rarely have the polish to get the large quantity of users needed for niche communities. And most users won’t understand why they are better anyway. So it’s just a horrible cycle.

I imagine this as a system that uses spare renewable energy like solar to generate gas that can be used to smooth the curve that is a renewable power source. It’s real value is that it reduces infrastructure needs, allowing its use in remote environments. But it does add a lot of additional failure points.

Only when it is good for “business”

It’s not really a trust thing. They are companies, not people. The top decision makers have a fubuciary responsibility to do whatever makes money. They can, and often do, get sued if they don’t. So you can expect them to sell you out. It’s literally thier purpose for existing.

Sadly, the lack of junior devs means my job is probably safe until I am ready to retire. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, yeah for me. On the other sad for the new grads. And sad for software as a whole. But software truely sucks, and has only been enshitifying worse and worse. Could a shake up like this somehow help that? I don’t see how, but who knows.

While I agree about most of your gripes. I don’t think requiring an account to contribute is unreasonable. I can underdtand not wanting to create an account and give them personal info and such. But if that is your stance, stop using them entirely. Giving them code is even worse.