If you are dissatisfied with the free thing I gave you, then I am happy to send you a refund of your purchase price. 🤷‍♂️

That’s my preferred strategy.

UPDATE: Before any angry cards and letters, let me clarify. When I reply this way, I learn a lot about the person I’m talking to, including whether they are prepared to have a reasonable conversation about this complex matter. The response I’m hoping for is “Well played.”, because that tells me that they recognize how ridiculous we are both being. I can work with them.

If they are merely having a tough time and needed to vent, then they’ll notice that and we can move forward.

If they are truly that entitled, then I don’t mind what happens next, because they would probably never have accepted any help I could offer them, anyway.

Not only is it normalized, but it’s being weaponized. See, for example, the recent XZ backdoor which was equal parts hacking and a psi-op against the maintainer.

I don’t think I’d ever complain directly to the maintainer. I often do find instructions that are essentially The Rest of the Fucking Owl but you go to the community for help and then give up when 90% of them act like you are an idiot for even asking.

It was always normalized, but recently there seems to be more backlash from maintainers.

Who is this little shit who can’t Google how to format a USB drive securely? If dd isn’t enough, there’s plenty of methods documented online.

Fuck such people. Off to the maintainers blacklist they should go

Just ignore them?

Is that you Jia Tan?

There are excessively clear instructions for tails on how to do exactly what they are asking. You can’t help people like that.

I think the proper response is to simply ignore someone that ignorant

deleted by creator

God knows no wrath like a slightly inconvenienced and intellectually humiliated liberal.

The post’s photo conversation seems like feedback moreso than complaining. 🤷

_{Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)}