There is a consumer mindset that expects a large range of functionality (the kind that might be found in apps made by large companies) from most software, even from indie projects. Sometimes people are not aware that one or a few people might be working on a given project, often poorly compensated and in spare time. In this mindset, indie efforts become thought of as incomplete and unusable.

Thinking of smaller alternatives in this way reinforces the dominance of products by large companies and makes it even less likely for alternative ideas to exist, as it becomes unlikely to reach an audience large enough to find self-sustaining patronage and fund continuous development of the idea.

This might make sense if one blindly trusts those companies, or if they at least acted in the interests of the greater good, but increasingly it seems that the more dominant they are, the more aggressively they pursue shareholder value, and this eventually happens at the cost of collective well-being. Therefore, the mindset creates a dynamic where consumers expect and demand only those solutions that can be created by actors that will ultimately destroy everything.

Technology will not save us, but as it underpins many aspects of our life, we should change our technology to avoid a trajectory that favours the outcomes intended by these large companies. An easier path forward can be to use alternatives one bit at a time and avoid individual action by [[switching together]].