Lately I've been thinking about the "enshittification" of productivity apps, how everything is having features crammed into it that really get in the way of what users want to do, in the name of selling them subscriptions or optional buy-ups.

I've been mulling around the idea of some kind of foundation that could sponsor the development of what I would consider "Good for the end-user" software of this nature. Something to encourage building apps that are pleasant to use and keeping them pleasant to use.

It's a rough problem to figure out how this would work though, realistically. Some kind of binding license or legal contract that says "here's what you can't do to this software, for this many years, if we give you resources" essentially. But I am well aware that solutions like that also generally end with someone finding a sneaky loophole to take advantage of it.

I'm very passionate about this idea, but I just don't know how feasible it is. Maybe I should have gone to law school instead of learning to program.