I was being sarcastic.

They will for sure use things like phobias/weaknesses to psychologically influence you to get you out of their way.

They for sure won’t get hold of any notes about medical conditions (or god forbid, notes from your therapist) and use them against you if you opposed them.

I’ve been using mint exclusively for like 3 months and have been using a hearty blend of terminal installs and the program manager app.

It seems to not have caused any problems YET, but I’ve been assured it will. I see flatpack conversations a lot and don’t fully understand the differences (apart from the install method).

Is it worth understanding and committing to a single system or can I just be a low-power user for a while?

E-commerce isn’t as much of a monopoly as “reddit-style social media”.

Technically anyone has the ability to open an eshop and sell whatever they want (provided they follow the appropriate sales/tax laws etc).

It’s just that people don’t like to buy from no-name shops online, as reputations give a level of accountability.

I imagine a lot of people got their credit card details stolen when the first eshops appeared.