Bit of tinfoil coming in, so be warned. As per usual, YMMV.
I just clicked the latest video from one of the pro photographers on YT. It’s about LuminarNeo, and obviously it’s a paid video.
There are several comments under that video mentioning the propietary competition (mainly Adobe products) by name.
But when I left a comment mentioning RawTherapee, and how free open source alternatives are never discussed by those typical corporate-affiliate YT channels, my comment wasn’t permitted through.
It’s not the first time something like that has happened either, but I still find it fascinating how the true threat for these corporations is never their “official” proprietary competition, but free alternatives like RT or DT. Even remotely mentioning open source or any free app by name is completely off-limits.
This gives me a lot of confidence in the quality of the open source projects featured on this site. They wouldn’t be so aggressively opposed to this if they didn’t know fully well how powerful programs like RT/DT/ART and the rest of it really are.
It is quite a widespread belief that open source software is synonymous with malware. Brobably born out of the FOSS FUD from the late nineties.
Also, any association of Luminar with Lightroom is a good thing for Luminar in an advertising sense. It makes the two products seem equivalent, even though realistically they are not.
Conversely, association with FOSS makes Luminar seem equally “worthless”. That is probably not a media image they want to promote.
Note how none of this has anything to do with the quality of the software in question.
Now that I’ve linked the video, I should also say that I don’t blame him. He’s just someone trying to make a living. It’s just really terrible how platforms like YT are now fully optimized for advertising, having completely streamlined control-of-narrative for corporations. And with the massive money behind anything corporate, it’s near impossible to even get in a word edgewise with regard to any non-corporate alternatives. Again, that’s not Danson’s fault, and I don’t blame him. He’s just playing the game, the rulebook of which really leaves absolutely nothing to chance anymore. Corporations just hate the free marketplace of ideas.
I’m not a Luminar NEO fan, but I have to say… All things considered, personally I’d rather see a photographer showcasing (more or less) popularly-priced photography software than a ~$7k photographer’s wristwatch:
If I had $7k to blow I think I’d use it to help fill my camera bag, not hang on my wrist. But of course, to each his own. And then again if I actually had $7k to blow, I might feel differently.
My post is not about Luminar Neo. It’s about advertising on YT channels related to photography, and how corporate image editing software is an intentionally closed ecosphere, which creates a rift where any non-corporate alternative is aggressively removed from sight by corporate censorship.
Well, you must have a theory of class very different from anything I’ve previously encountered.
Still… seeing things such as the ones you describe always feels completely absurd but is undeniably a very important part of how our world currently functions.
Yes, evidently I did not use the term “class consciousness” tongue in cheek. I was completely 100% serious that this is actually a perfect example of the concept.
Just FYI, dunno if it’s the case here, but I’ve found that if I leave a YT comment with a link in it, it’ll get auto-deleted virtually every time. Even if I phonetically spelled out the link, it still got deleted (and the channel owner said he didn’t do it). Presumably that’s a built-in YT anti-spam measure of some sort…?
I’m familiar with the terms and concepts that why I’m confused. I can’t make it work even as a joke or tongue in cheek comment. Is it the capitalist class that should show confidence by allowing competing views? On the other hand surely they show class consciousness by protecting their own and even competing capitalists interest by blocking free alternatives? So many questions
That wikipedia page is quite funny in it’s inconsistencies by the way. I’m guessing various competing factions have fought a wikipedia battle leaving only the charred remains of an article behind.
I read it as large, corporate media is owned by the ruling class and controls the platforms to the degree of which they automatically remove mentions of FOSS, which is “underclass” or “of the people.” Capitalist aren’t scared of other capitalists, but they are frightened of the commons.
That fear is taken as OP as a sign of quality and it distills a sense of pride of them for using the tools of the people.
Which is pretty ironic given that for most modern Linux distributions, installing from repositories is pretty secure. At least orders of magnitude more secure than downloading closed source binaries from various sources on the web.
You are absolutely right, but I stopped caring about this decades ago. Free software is available for everyone, so it is up to them to find it and use it — it is not my concern if they want to spend money instead.
FOSS will never dominate the “market”, for the same reasons that eating healthy and exercising won’t become prevalent behaviors. But nothing prevents me from doing what I want so it is fine.
