this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
-32 points (16.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

38742 readers
1074 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm using "business" here as a general word, you can think of it for any field: physical stores, indie developers, startups, etc...

How many times did this happen before? Every big company was once a small one. Google used to be the good guys at the beginning.

We're currently seeing the old praised Proton starts its small pseudo-monopoly business in the privacy focused services field.

You might think you're helping the world by putting your money in the "morally correct" place, but at the end you might be just helping a new greedy company to arise.

I had this thought after seeing the page of a indie game on Steam, it's been a few months I'm pirating everything related to digital media, but then I saw this game from an indie developer that I wish listed in 2023, it got launched oct., 2025. As I decided to pirate everything I had a second thought on this one, "maybe I should pay for this one, it's a good cause, this guy put some effort on it, why not?!", the game currently has 802 reviews, which isn't bad for a indie game.

But then WHAT IF? What if the game becomes popular? What if people start demanding more and buying a lot? What if the developer decide to start a small company to attend the people demand? And what if this company become the new average modern company adding paywalls, DLCs, cosmetics? What if they start abusing AI use to "boost productivity" and ship faster?

What have I done with my money?

Now I face this moral dilemma, should I pay for it or just pirate it like I usually do?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CodenameDarlen@lemmy.world -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Like choosing between Apple (Mac, iOS), Google (Android) or Microsoft (Windows)? It still doesn't feel the right approach.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well I use Linux, so none of the above

[–] CodenameDarlen@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Me too, but that's an exception. The mainstream OSs are still in the hands of greedy companies.

[–] Barrington@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

Valid point but do you think they would be more or less greedy if they had no competition?