Go vegan.

Use FOSS.

Use public transport.

Reject flying.

Punch Nazis.

Tone. Use Firefox/Linux/whatever posts also get downvoted when they are to preachy.

Wrong: "If you use Windows/eat meat you are evil, repent now !!11! There are no reasons for any person to be doing it, if you don't understand that you are a monster as well."

Right: "I/my company/my dog were using Windows/eating meat and it's not all bad but the negatives outweight the positives. That's why I switched to Linux/not eating meat. If anyone else wants to try this is a good way to start: .... "

With "use Firefox" people tend to interpret as "try this thing instead, it's better or will do the thing you're looking to do"

With "go vegan" people tend to interpret it as "you're doing something wrong and need to change your habits".

Essentially, one is seen as a suggestion and the other an attack.

Because meat tastes good, and browsers don’t taste like anything?

You are in the fedi, a fringe social space generally uses by IT focused people. People love their linux here because these instances are probably all hosted on Linux. People are here because they left traditional social media.

I'm not saying veganism isn't welcome here. You just have a ton of tech people here. If reddit tried to ban vegans instead of punch advertising down people's throats you would have more vegans instead of people who use Firefox.

Use Vegan Fox.

Suggesting a browser or bashing a corporate brand are not the same as encouraging morally driven life choices. Is that not obvious?

Find a thread where someone is looking for a piece of FOSS software and someone comes in saying "I've tried all the FOSS projects, but I find X [paid or not open source] just works better for me" and you will see the reaction you want to see.

Like vegans, FOSS people are a minority community with stiff moral stances and they hold their beliefs for very specific personal reasons. To the FOSS people, suggesting they use closed software is likely the same as when people tell you that you must not be getting enough Vitamin B or whatever because you don't eat meat.

As someone non-vegan and not overly concerned about FOSS, I've had guys and bad interactions with both groups. I've had bad reactions when I've suggested free but closed source solutions and gotten bad reactions in return, and I've shared things with vegans who liked my original things I've shared about meat and dairy alternatives and their opinion of me changes when they learn I hunt for food.

People get defensive when you either question their morality or people question your morality. We can attempt to understand others' actions and beliefs, but we truly only understand our own, and that can make us all act out irrationally. It can be hard to not try to show others why you made your personal moral decisions, and it's fine to try to share or teach others your values, but there's a fine line between sharing beliefs and getting pushy about it, and it's different for everyone.

I read an interesting discussion on someone claiming that they ate plant based food rather than being vegan, as veganism is a loaded term these days. Suggesting people eat a more plant based diet is an easier concept to internalise than veganism.

The decades of propaganda about veganism by the meat and dairy industry is deeply embedded in cultures at this point, conservative culture especially.

People have been trained so thoroughly that they literally have a visceral, irrational response to the word veganism. It's been made impossible to actually talk about in a coherent way with most people, and lemmy has a lot of redditor refugees who carry that kind of thing with them.

The simple reason is that most people here already use Firefox, but not most people here are already vegan.

Vegan is a tradeoff. Replacing highly bioavailable food with lectins and other things. It can be done in a healthy way, but there is lots of nuance and discussion and it's a deeply personal choice.

Just because people agree on the tradeoffs of one thing, doesn't mean they agree with the tradeoffs of another.

Downloading firefox is easy.

you should do both tbh

Because on here, just like on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, people want to feel self superior without actually interrogating their own behavior.

Your examples would have more similarity with suggesting a vegetarian diet as an alternative to a mix or most meat diet. That would be a functional alternative, like suggesting a different OS or Browser.

Veganism more like a political statement that if you eat meat your are a bad person for harming animals. All vegans may be vegetarians but not all vegetarians are vegan.

I will admit there are many OS and Browser purists that might be more like vegans telling you, you are bad for choosing the one you currently use. There are FOSS purists that only tell you to use FOSS because it is NOT commercial not because the software is better for what you need.

Can you link to some examples of comments that got downvoted unfairly in your opinion?

it's two very different things and there are more lemmy users using free software than vegan lemmy users

Because we already see so many of those.