I'd be interested in seeing them partner with some of the other interesting and open-ish players, like Pine64 or Radxa, to push for a more standardised, unified SBC landscape.
But that's not as good for PR as "bigger, faster, better" even if that comes with the problems you mentioned.
I really think you have got a point, I'd add however that reading is more cognitive effort than watching a video, at a basic level (that is, information in the text or video put aside).
Just see how hard it is to read more than a few paragraphs when tired before bed vs. how hard it is to watch something in the same state.
I think this gets added to the point you are making about reading skills declining.
That's a pretty impressive way to imagine people's motivations.
The likelihood of a non-profit outfit building open source software being driven by a warped sense of justice and the goal of making people miserable rather than, say, trying to make sure they can continue their stated mission and ensure publishers keep agreeing to digital book lending is pretty bold. But sure, why not.
Matrix also keeps your message on the server. Except you can run your own server. And the messages are end to end encrypted. And you can keep a proper backup of the keys.
Granted it can be clunky at times, but the properties are there and decentralised end to end encrypted messaging is quite and incredible thing. (Yes, Matrix nerds, it's not messaging per se it's really state replication, I know :))
That's it. The article could be just that. You log back in and all your messages are there without you having to provide a secret or allow access to some specific backup? Your data just lives on the server. The only thing preventing anyone from accessing it is the goodwill of the people running the server.
I would imagine a minor browser would be less of an influence than the fact that most browsers have vertical tabs as an option at this point, or even just the slew of add-ons for Firefox itself.
See also this conversation, where Mobime request respect and to "acknowledge the efforts being made to resolve the situation" while blurting out things like "We could have easily suspended the entire repository, but we have chosen to keep it open to reassure you that we are taking all necessary steps to resolve this". Classy.
I gave up on DD-WRT years ago when they started obfuscating parts of the WebUI to not have to comply with FOSS requirements (from foggy memory), moved to OpenWRT and never looked back. Trying to turn into a proprietary product something that was built by the community? Yeah no.
Do you think email should have a branded client, simply called "email" available in all the major app stores?
Or XMPP have a branded client, simply called "XMPP" etc.?
Align on a protocol, experiment and compete with clients is a good way to make progress.
Matrix = email.
Element = Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.
The Matrix name has never budged since the beginning of the project.
One of the Matrix servers is called Synapse. Others include Conduit or Dendrite (see https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/).
That's the thing, the statement "there are no good cops" doesn't mean that no individual person that is police can be an ok person, it means that police as an institution will make people bad.
My understanding is that it should be seen more as the starrtng point of a reflexion about the police (what should we therefore do?) rather than a conclusion.
But that's not as good for PR as "bigger, faster, better" even if that comes with the problems you mentioned.