I don't think they're necessarily so much the number of search engines that currently exist (there's already currently several) but rather that not enough people use the alternatives that Google had the monopoly. (Also helped by Google actively railroading users into its products and suppressing the competition)
Not always. And I don't see the key distinction you mean. Can you explain further.
Using the example of my city again, there's no difference between the buses and taxis here in terms of contracted or not. The various bus companies are all privately owned. Some still have their own liveries. Some have the city council liveries. Some bus services don't have regular contracts with the council/government at all and just run various private services. Sometimes the council will contract them for one off services. Regardless of how they look or the contract (or lack thereof), they're all privately owned.
All the taxis are private owned. But the government/council contracts them for certain purposes. For example, if you are injured and unable to drive, ACC will pay for a taxi to take you to and from health services.
All of these companies are for-profita nd make profit from their contracts.
The profit made by some of the public services by private companies is a regular issue of contention in this country. As is the selling off by state owned public interest facilities (such as the rail system, power generation, communications, etc.).
We have a physical Steam Link (and a Steam controller) that we bought way back when Steam Link was fairly new. Now an Android TV that has the Steam Link app which is also pretty nifty. But since discovering Moonlight and Sunshine, we've been using that exclusively because it runs so much smoother.
In some countries the public transport is run by for-profit companies too. In my city, for example, ALL of the public transport are contracted private companies. They're all liveried as public transport, but they're still privately run.
This is less a problem about the actual scooters though and more of an issue with the people using them (or people setting them up) not giving a damn about where they're left.
I have mobility issues and can't use the footpath on Fridays because that's rubbish collection day and people just leave their bins in the middle of the footpath. People in my area also park on the footpaths, across the foot paths and leave all sorts of crap from their property leaning out onto them. That's despite it being illegal to do so.
If most people used the scooters responsibly (put their bins out responsibly, parked their cars on their property or road, etc. etc.) it would mostly be a non-issue.
That's not because suddenly, everyone will realize that the Linux desktop is wonderful. Sorry, folks, if it hasn't happened by now, it never will.
I agree that there will never be a "Year of the Linux desktop" just simply because that's not how consumer switching works. There will never be one single year where a huge swath of people suddenly switch (short of some dystopian Windows virus or something). It will always be a trickle of more and more people slowly over time switching. Valve and Proton have certainly helped boost numbers in more recent years but it's still a trickle. Even if it picks up more momentum, it's still not going to be a tidal wave of users.
Why does it need to be? Plenty of products, systems, habits, customs, etc. have come from obscurity to mainstream over a VERY long period of time. It doesn't have to be a race.
And here's me having paid $110 ($170 in today $) for Red Hat back when I was a poor cash-strapped tech student. đŹ TBF it came with an absolute tome of a manual.
I feel you so much on this. My previous phone was a Samsung Note 3 and man that thing just kept going. I used about 5 different ROMs on it over the years. But it wasn't keeping up with apps anymore. Thought I did thorough research when I replaced it with a S9+. Realised too late that some models can't be rooted and guess what I have? Yep, one of those models đ€Šđ»ââïž Now stuck with Samsung crap for the next however many years because I can't afford to just buy a different phone. Even more so because the screen has cracked twice (fixed first time, can't afford again). My Note3 got thrown off a 2nd story deck onto concrete twice and abused by my kids and kept on trucking no problem (apart from some scratches and dent to the frame). This S9 feels like it breaks being sneezed at đ
Sorry for confusion, I was having two different conversations going on at the same time and my brain was mixing them up a bit. I was referring to Duck Duck Go curating search results.
That said, Kagi does give me more relevant search results than Brave does. I know Brave Search says it doesn't censor, curate (downrank), etc. And yet, I still find controversial topics lower in the search results of Brave than I do with Kagi. (Not saying I'm siding with any controversial ideas, but rather I use controversial topics to test search engines for curation and censorship.)
EDIT: I just realised my brain got confused between two conversations I was having at the same time. One was this one - the difference between Brave BROWSER and Brave SEARCH. And another one where I was talking about Duck Duck Go curating search results đ€Šđ»ââïž Sorry for the confusion!
Curation of results. Yes, you can argue it's for a good reason. My issue is that they curate results based on ideologies at all. If they intentionally downrank some results based on their own beliefs for one thing, how can we trust them not to do it with other things? They weren't exactly transparent about it either.
I just want a search engine that serves me results based on what I have searched for. I can use my own brain to curate out or downrank results I don't want. I'm not interested in a search engine that thinks it knows what's best for me.
I think that's just with Brave browser, not Brave Search. At least, I can't find anything related to crypto in Brave Search settings that are there in Brave Browser (I'm using Firefox with Brave Search).
EDIT: With Brave Search (not using the browser), I'm more concerned that the results are still being curated and some results censored. Whereas using something like Kagi, I can see the results are exactly what I would expect to be served, uncensored and uncurated (i.e. how Google and all the rest used to be before they decided they knew better than us what we wanted to search for.)
It's possible they're currently doing AB testing and removing it for some folks and not others to see how much it's used or if they can get away with not having a date range.
I don't think they're necessarily so much the number of search engines that currently exist (there's already currently several) but rather that not enough people use the alternatives that Google had the monopoly. (Also helped by Google actively railroading users into its products and suppressing the competition)