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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • I’ve mentioned it in another thread about this, bug in case you really want to understand: people sign up for much more than the desktop office applications. It’s a full on groupware package that comes with 1TB of cloud storage. Which automatically gives you access to your documents on any machine you use. If you get a new windows device you basically don’t need to put in any effort into setting things up because it’s already there. And for 80 euros you can do this for five people.

    So in short: convenience for a reasonable price. To the point where it’s hard to justify running it yourself. Especially because your family will start to ask you how they can get MS office again.

    Office alternatives have long existed and have been good enough for a long time. I remember writing my evening class project reports in them 20 ish years ago. Funnily enough on how to integrate Linux servers into a Windows domain and authenticating with domain users on that machine. But if you want to compare M365 to something, compare it to NextCloud.



  • I don’t disagree agree that that’s technically true. But in practice it’s simply not going to happen. My 70 year old mother just wants to use outlook to mail her friends and I’ve setup het phone to save the pictures she takes of her grandkids (my nieces and nephews) on OneDrive so she can share them easily with the rest of the family. Same thing for my brother and my SiL. For 80 euros a year I get a full groupware experience with no extra work. Is it perfect? Of course not. But even with a higher budget there’s no feature for feature alternative.

    Hell, the chances of getting my work to switch to OSS cloud subscriptions is higher than getting my family to do it.



  • I’ve used LibreOffice (or OpenOffice as it was known before), and a problem with this approach is that your family will still constantly ask you to install Office and crack it for them. And those who don’t know any better will ask your help to open the PowerPoint their friends keep sending them.

    Not to mention that LibreOffice doesn’t have an easy to integrate backup solution, nor an easy way to share big photo folders, let alone a decent mail client.

    LibreOffice is a good thing at what it wants to be. But it’s not comparable to what MS is offering in the form of a subscription though. You don’t just switch and only replace the word and excel alternative…



  • How can you know you’re not interested without having a conversation? Try shifting your focus to having a pleasant conversation, even if that leads to nothing. Not that that is easy all the time but if you’re chatting on a dating app or something it should be doable since it’s not exactly real time. If it’s in real life just own up to it by saying you’re nervous.