You'd still be classified as a lurker if you comment and post rarely.

just because Microsoft isn't extinguishing linux doesn't mean that they want it to grow for the average user. If anything WSL is an attempt to stop windows from leaking users to linux distros. "Look, you can use your favorite linux tools on windows too! Why use linux as an OS when you can use it as an app in windows, where we'll spy on you on every possible moment and show you ads on your start menu?"

Meta created Threads, a microblogging platform (basically a Twitter clone) that you use with your Instagram account. They've stated that in the future, Threads will be able to federate with other ActivityPub platforms.

What you describe is a big problem for generic communities such as YouShouldKnow, NoStupidQuestions etc and even hobbies where most of the people practicing them aren't good with tech.

For more niche stuff Lemmy works better because if you want to talk about, say, communism you can go to lemmygrad.ml and instantly get a front page with communities about communism. If Lemmy continues to grow I expect we'll see more themed instances pop up (e.g. about gaming, technology, fitness) and Lemmy's advantages over Reddit will be seen more clearly.

Why does a text message amount to contract acceptance? Even if there wasn't a misunderstanding, I wouldn't believe this to be true if you had asked me yesterday.

If I text someone "sell me your tv for $1" and he replies "ok" can I sue him if he doesn't?

Talking about any alternative scenario is always speculation, but I believe the "How to kill decentralized networks" post that's been going around lately puts it nicely:

One thing is sure: if Google had not joined, XMPP would not be worse than it is today.

The classic enshittification story.

How is it different than Twitter or Mastodon?

That's the problem though. If XMPP had grew organically then it would fare much better. With how it happened, XMPP's growth was mostly because of Google, and that put a lot of pressure to other servers and the protocol's development to cater to them, because they had the majority of the users in their platform.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is baked into capitalism. Stocks are attractive to investors because they want to sell them for a higher price later on, and stock prices increase when the company grows.

Sadly have to agree with pornhub on this one. Besides being a glaring security and privacy hole, this will push teens to sites that fly under the radar, which are more likely to host "extreme" or "hardcore" porn. Or they'll learn how to use VPNs, but why risk it?

Does Linux have issues with CPU drivers too? Both my desktop and laptop have intel CPUs and I didn't have to fiddle with the drivers to install Linux in them.