This is not meant to predict the future, but to point out the current drift. Things have changed a lot in the past year, and will likely keep changing.
I once predicted that Microsoft would jump the shark and could lose their dominance. They did jump the shark with their initial rollout of Win10, but the Linux community did something equally stupid at about the same time. Now, Win10 is actually viable, while Linux has lost it’s only opportunity. Whatever is going to happen, it won’t be Linux rising in popularity with consumers.
The single strongest advantage Linux always had in the past was user control — every bit of it was there in the open. All of that changed with the advent of systemd, and more importantly, how it was adopted by all the major business-oriented and consumer-grade brands of Linux. User control has never been more difficult and obscure, and it’s only getting worse, with more and more system functions folded into it. It’s getting so difficult to disentangle all the common tools and features of the OS that removing systemd means losing over half of the packages available out there. The few distributions that rejected systemd are not user-friendly, so they don’t matter. There is truly no longer any advantage at all in choosing Linux over Windows.
And Apple isn’t doing any better. Not only is it the most expensive path anyone can take for personal computer use, but prices are spiraling upward, right when the entire global economy is tanking for the bulk of consumers. It’s good technology, but nobody can afford it.
Meanwhile, the trend in Big Tech is to make computer use environmental, moving away from discrete computers that contain the whole system. Instead of computers, we are pushed to adopt devices that merely tap into a centralized computing supply. This is how the independence of owning a computer will die, and user freedom will be crushed. The Mark of the Beast will soon be cheap and obligatory smartphones (or watches and tablets), just short of an implant with no means of user control beyond letting it run down and refusing to use it.
This is a part of the socialist/communist borg-like control you should expect to descend over the US. Socialism was gaining ground before Trump even announced his candidacy. His election shows socialism isn’t that popular, but it is being foisted on us by a militant and angry minority. So it won’t matter who the next president is, because we shall have socialism rammed down our throats.
And it will fail spectacularly because it’s leadership truculently rejects economic reality. America does not possess the culture to support socialism, and the economy is grinding to a halt, so we can’t afford it, either. But once it grips our federal government and the last vestiges of classic liberty are stripped away, government will be forced to confiscate everything, and some portion of the population will revolt. This is going to get very messy unless the Lord has mercy and causes the leadership of this thing to shatter earlier rather than later.
The problem for you and I in the covenant of Radix Fidem is that we are more likely to be noticed. That’s not a problem in itself, but the socialists already hate us because they can’t use us. The more conservative half of America also dislikes us, but is willing to live and let live. Socialists (and associated idolaters) are not like that; they must control everything. So we should pray that we continue going unnoticed by all but a few hardy souls already looking for what we have.
