Buggy software, not so user friendly, things don't work, new things to learn..
Sometimes you just wanna do a simple thing and you cannot do it and that really undermines your self esteem.
You try to find little working solutions when big techs with armies of engeneers and programmers are working against you.
Aurora store stopping to work, apps getting blocked on lineage os or rooted phones, Reddit cleaning out all those amazing third party apps, Linux that wanna make you destroy your pc at times, Firefox remaining the only real alternative to chromium (only god knows for how long yet), google wanting to DRM everything, ig blocking my account because i was using barinsta (i cannot even delete it), Newpipe getting stuck after 1/4 of the video.
Sometimes you find half of your software stops working and you need to go and understand why, fixing or checking for alternatives..
Is it possible that we have from one side mass tracking and surveilance and from the other a (sometimes understandibly quite not organized) series of freely mainteined software.
Can't we just find a new way of monetize stuff without ads? So that we can build really nicely working software without all the shit that comes from the need of having to track the user? Are there real alternatives? We need to get organized and actually starting to build a better web and software, but i really think an economical incentive is still very much needed for it to be stable and usable by everyone.
Sorry this is more of a rant than a real post, sometimes everything really gets frustrating and you have to deal with much more serious shit in life that doesn't leave time for checking out why your Newpipe, your gps or home server doesn't work..
So, regarding convenience, sadly my apps are mostly non-FOSS. These non-FOSS devs have the advantage that they can see the source code of their FOSS alternatives. They also have FAR more workforce. So, we'll probably never reach the point where general FOSS is superior to closed source software.
The area that's primarily FOSS to me is coding. With ChatGPT it's got damn easy to build daily productivity tools that meet one's specific needs.
Security is also generally better with FOSS, but, yeah, I admit that the UI is less convenient than the proprietary ones...
I think transparency and collaboration is good for software quality in the medium run. You suggested the opposite, and in my observation that's not true.
Yes, proprietary devs can copy the ideas, but nobody helps them find or fix bugs, or insist on interoperability or following protocols. So corners are cut, often reasonably, and then in a few years it's full of cruft.
Well, regarding apps I use, they typically have professional testers who find bugs and who are paid full-time to fix them. Interoperability and protocols are respected differently by different projects by FOSS and non-FOSS alike, and they aren't needed for many apps.
Something suggests me we're not going to agree, though. I'd appreciate if you further counter my points, but I'm likely not going to agree with you in that case. So, don't waste your energy.
The big FOSS apps are tested by many paid and unpaid people. So I'm not sure that your QA instincts are serving you well.
The value of interoperability and protocols all depend on your situation. If you're temporarily doing certain standalone tasks, maybe you don't care. Just try to avoid reinventing the wheel.