if all software was free and it was impossible for closed-source writing apps like Scrivener to make money (which is to say, if economic conditions did not allow for them to be developed / exist in the first place), do you think writers would just all throw up their hands and say “i guess we can’t use computers for writing then”?

i like to believe in a world where writers have unions, writers’ unions understand the need for writers to have technology which works for them, and they or other writing-trade-related organizations have the ability and resources to pay somebody to write the programs that their members need

(writers, if they care about their art at all, would want the tools of writing to be broadly accessible and free)

a world of individuals or corporations buying licenses to software is maybe the best replacement we can muster for a world of trade guilds directly hiring or commissioning programmers to develop technologies for their tradesmen, but it is also an active impediment to that world, i feel

it’s truly capitalistic how we see Software as the thing which gets payed for and which must be upheld, rather than asking how we might increase the breadth and scope of employment opportunities for programmers beyond startups which make money from subscription fees and selling customer data (and no-longer-startups which do the same thing but worse)

do we need to pay for software? or can we just pay wages to software labourers?

@u2764 I think software should be developed by hiring wandering throuples to collectively design-develop-debug ad-hoc adaptors/features/plugins/frontends to youtube-dl and calibre.

@gaditb idk i’m not sold on throuples as an econo-romantic arrangement; you probably need at least 5 in the polycule in order for the inevitable breakups not to blow the whole thing apart

@u2764 The throuple-bit specifically, like the romance/sexuality of it, was a reference to Delany's "Babel-17" (the Navigators). Realistically, I think the intuitive sharing of eachother's expectations/needs/bodies/weaknesses is probably less crucial for software than for hyperspace travel.
(Also both the Slug and the Captain probably intentionally contributed stability to the relationship, as part of their jobs.)

But also, I think as long as the breakups weren't blowups and were meerly fracturing, that wouldn't be that bad? You hold together through the finite current job then let yourselves fall apart, reach out to the community for others looking for an experienced third you can rec to them, for a lone old-hand or new learner looking for an existing two to join.
("But Gadit what about actual legitimate bad blood developing, which isvinevitable in enough real relationships" aww I wanted to keep utopian-fantasizing and hoping somebody'd grab this for their SFF setting.)