>And the reason people initially used Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp is not that they were easier to use or better. It's advertising. Notice how all of these are proprietary software made by companies with the means to advertise their software? You can bet people would use GnuPG, Diaspora, and XMPP if they had been advertised by companies like Facebook and Microsoft.
I know quite a few non-techies who use VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice, and other OS advertising-less projects. The difference is:
1. Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp solved problems others didn't and became big. Now it's too late to fight.
Had Diaspora been around before FB, and as easy to work with (put name here, picture here, password here, friend here. You're all set up. Let's go), or XMPP been around before Skype (which is a very old program in internet time), or Kontalk,Signal, etc. been around before WhatsApp (find friends by number, not by username), they probably would have taken off (at least to some degree).
Google came late onto the Desktop scene (Chromebooks) and are not successful while the incumbent (MS) is good.
MS came late onto the mobile scene and failed, while the incumbent (Google) is good.
I know quite a few non-techies who use VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice, and other OS advertising-less projects. The difference is:
1. Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp solved problems others didn't and became big. Now it's too late to fight.
Had Diaspora been around before FB, and as easy to work with (put name here, picture here, password here, friend here. You're all set up. Let's go), or XMPP been around before Skype (which is a very old program in internet time), or Kontalk,Signal, etc. been around before WhatsApp (find friends by number, not by username), they probably would have taken off (at least to some degree).
Google came late onto the Desktop scene (Chromebooks) and are not successful while the incumbent (MS) is good.
MS came late onto the mobile scene and failed, while the incumbent (Google) is good.