I really like Rust but there are lots of situations I wouldn’t use it. Some examples:

• If I want very strict control over dependencies, a very small number of dependencies, or dependencies with specific/trusted origin.
• If I was building software that won’t be actively maintained for years but might need adjustments later. The Rust ecosystem is a fast-moving target and upgrading a library could cause a huge cascade of other changes.
• For the most hassle-free integration with an important library like Qt, particularly if a Qt GUI is the main point of my application.
• Most web front-end. Using WASM to control the DOM with glue code is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
• (?) Probably most event-driven apps like GUIs. Rust’s lifetimes mostly stay out of your way but they only work on the stack. Synchronisation between potentially multiple threads is very in-your-face and explicit, compared with say Java’s “synchronized” methods. It’s only early days for Rust GUI frameworks so I will wait and see. Maybe they’ll come up with something great.

Would the “Extreme Centre” featured in The Social Dilemma be prevented from radicalising people if greater regulation was in place? Of course not, they should have used FOSS to get their message out!

…I’m being facetious, but honestly, FOSS-or-not is orthogonal to the issues set out in the documentary. The fact that most FOSS social networking doesn’t have ads has nothing to do with the source code being available under a particular licence. It happens because it’s run by idealistic volunteers who will use money they obtained elsewhere to promote both FOSS and services without ads, because they like both things. An AGPL social network could use exactly the same manipulations to fund itself and it would still be free software provided they shared the code.

The actual alternative was stated very clearly in the documentary - you have to pay, or else you are the product. There is a narrow window that exists in the small FOSS communities now where that isn’t true, but if you want to see an alternative that works at scale you’d better be ready to subscribe to that patreon or your providers are not going to make it. As usual, it’s about $.