I hate that it is the way it is, but OSS “alternatives” are not serious tools for professionals. That said, I’m 100% in favor of nationalizing Adobe and Microsoft, since they’ve created a world where only their tools are good enough to do the job, but that’s not the conversation we’re having here.

Here’s a simple test: take all formatting out of a copy of Ulysses or some other doorstopper of a classic novel so it’s just a giant wall of text. Give two publishing pros each a copy of that wall of text, have one turn it in to a publishable book using the industry standard tools and one do the same task with the OSS “alternatives” and see who’s done first, and which version is the better looking final product.

Wanna place any bets?

Then that’s even worse, because the design of the OSS “alternatives” to everything I use daily for work screams “hobbyist who just needed the basic functions of a word processor and spreadsheet editor for school”.

Neither was worth the time it took to uninstall them when they proved almost unusably inferior to the industry standards.

These things are the standard for a reason, OSS hobbyists who are not graphic designers or admin workers generally will never be able to make something that is in the same league for the exact same reason that I couldn’t build a compiler better than the industry standard one, even if I technically had the coding skills to make it, because I haven’t spent decades using one professionally, so I wouldn’t know what an industry pro would want from it.

Porn with minors is already illegal, that strawman doesn’t even stand up.

Opposing this is about opposing the normalization of porn bans. Making porn with kids is already illegal most everywhere, and making porn where someone pretends to be a kid is already illegal in the UK.

Defending this is defending backdoor theocracy.

Side note: dibs on Backdoor Theocracy as a band name…

Until they get people comfortable with that. Then it’ll be porn that’s deemed “degrading” or depictions of BDSM, or whatever they think they can sell you next. People who want to stop porn want to stop all porn. People who aren’t religious psychos who fall for this kind of bullshit aren’t really better than the religious psychos in any practical sense.

Signed, A guy who hates step porn, and is really pissed off to have to defend it.