It also adds noise to the site metrics and recommendation algorithm making them less valuable overall.
It's like the application that will watermark images with digital noise designed to throw off AI training that uses that image.
You're no longer a user who is able to be profiled (because you 'like' things completely at random). If everyone was using a plugin like this then advertisers wouldn't be able to serve targeted content because they wouldn't know what content types work best for each user because every user clicks ads randomly and so there is no detectable signal, just noise.
You get the same effect, but reduced, if less people are using it.
In addition, if half of the users on a website are using adblockers and suddenly those users start clicking ads, then it costs twice as much to advertise while not providing any additional customers which makes spending money on web advertisement less attractive.
I’d take it a step further that by “by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts”, they’re really meaning “it’s for the elites”. They like that it’s hard, they had to work to learn it and they’ll be damned if anyone should get it easier, and also it’s a way to flex on people.
I may be overstating this person’s take on it and reading more into it than is there, but that’s my general view of this enthusiast (elitist) mindset, and really, it isn’t doing anyone any favors.
You're going to always have a negative view of people that disagree with you if you simply create an strawman position and declare it as their beliefs rather than listening to what they're saying.
I've never been against GUIs, as I've said in my previous comments. But, like the user I was replying to, treating terminal use like a failure of UI design instead of the core reason that Linux was developed is just ignorant of the history of the operating system.
If some people want to make a fully graphical UI for the everyman, that's perfectly fine but that is only one small use case for Linux and since, as of today, such a UI doesn't exist then everyone using Linux will need to learn to use the terminal because some tasks will require it. That's the reality of Linux today.
I don't think it's a bad thing that there are some tasks that can be done in a GUI.
I don't believe that any Linux DE is at the point where a regular user never needs to use the terminal. Knowing how to use the terminal is, currently, a required skill for using Linux.
Now, don't take this to mean that I think someone's grandmother needs to be a terminal user. By "regular user" I mean "average person who has chosen to use Linux" and not "random person off the streets", that person should probably use Windows still because Linux isn't ready for everyone.
The average user of a computer does not want to even think about the operating system it uses.
That is certainly true.
Not everyone needs to be technical, and shouldn’t have to be to use a computer and reap the full benefits of using one. I choose to be because I’m a fucking spaz, but that doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t want to be should instead be condemned to inferior offerings from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. If Linux were, indeed, the best – as Microsoft seems determined to prove via Windows enshittification – then it should be, ideally, just as easy for nontechnical people to pick up as Windows. If it isn’t, that’s a problem with Linux that is yet to be solved, not a problem with people.
[...]
I say all this in the hope you’ll understand, if you want Linux to take off, it needs to be accessible to the average idiot.
You seem to be misinterpreting what I am saying.
I am not here as a Linux evangelical, trying to spread the Source Code Word of Linus. It's admirable that you want that, you should contribute to the many open source projects that are bringing that closer to reality.
I'm here as a user of Linux trying to read Linux memes in c/linuxmemes and so I focus my attention on the present state of being a user in Linux, not some hypothetical reality that, though desirable, doesn't yet exist.
In the current state of things, Linux is not for everyone. It is a good operating system, but not everyone has the time to use it. I will certainly tell people of the advantages that it has over Windows and, for those capable, I will recommend it.
For the people that choose to use Linux today, the 1st of April in the Year of our Lord 2025: you will have to use the Terminal. It isn't optional. Nor, despite the griping of newbies, is it a difficult thing to learn and you should become comfortable with it if you want to be a successful user of Linux. Artificially limiting yourself to GUI applications is going to make the operating system seem less capable than it actually is and you will be frustrated by a much larger set of problems.
Until that glorious day in The Future when the universal GUI DE comes out, learn to use the terminal.
Just install protonup-qt. Gives you an easy, UI based, way to install GE-Proton without messing around copying files manually.