How does open source affect you? Well, for starters, you may have heard of an organization called BuyBlue, a project that included a database of companies that were more in line with your values: human rights, transparency, effective government accountable to its citizens, consumer rights, eco-friendly, and much, much more.
Sadly, that organization has gone offline, waiting to be rescued and reincarnated in a 2.0 iteration. If you visit this site, there is an explanation of what may be done, and checking carefully, you'll see a couple of Kossacks in the comments (#2 and #6), one of them helpfully offering to host the database for BuyBlue 2.0, no small undertaking.
In the categories of transparency, being eco-friendly, and consumer rights, one would rightfully conclude that the existence of big corporations using proprietary standards to prop up other monopolies and cartels, all at the expense of consumers to further enrich themselves while dealing out shoddy products that require greater hardware purchases (just toss that old hardware in the landfill!) would bother you at least a little bit.
Monopolists that lock consumers out of the ability to do what they want with their existing hardware, software, and data, and give larger piles of money to other monopolists that have violated your civil rights in helping the government to spy on you by listening to your phone calls, open your email, filter your internet traffic and open anything they want, while reserving the right to decide what you can and cannot download over their networks.
One would rightfully conclude that these things are not in your best interests, and that by voting with your wallet (BuyBlue) you could stop these giants from continuing on their unrelenting path, then presumably you would be moved to act, even if it meant learning a little bit in the process of depriving them of their ill-gotten gains. One would hope.
If you were to guess that the cartels and monopolists involved in those actions were Microsoft, The RIAA, The MPAA, and AT&T, then you would be correct--all of them stand directly against you and your ability to use your computer, listen to music, use your new iPhone, watch movies, create and share content; they stand united against you, threatening you with legal action, gleaned from statistics that they themselves just make up out of thin air, gleaned from the software and hardware coming out now that will check if you have a license for everything you listen to and watch on your computer.
They want to cripple your hardware, whether it's your new computer, your new cell phone, your time-shifting digital recorder, all so they can sell you what they think is right for you to see and listen to, how you operate those devices, and they want to charge you for every single listen and view and call and software 'upgrade', forever and ever, with no chance for you to choose something else or to opt out of what they have decided for you.
Digital content is getting easier to transmit and receive, easier to store, while hardware becomes more powerful, delivering you a richer and more enjoyable user experience--while they want to create artificial scarcity, and assert that you are a thief and a pirate if you try to use your software, hardware, data, and various electronic devices as you wish to.
They do this simply out of greed, and the fact that the government refuses to stand up for the citizens that put it into place, doing contortions in bending over backwards to please their wealthy business contributors and lobbyists, while you, citizen and consumer, get the royal shaft.
They do this because they refuse to move into the 21st century, relying on failed business models, expecting that those who are creating laws will help them hit you over the head with intellectual property rights and software patents, cudgeling you into submission, while their friends' crimes go unreported (or if reported, downplayed) in the media and entertainment channels that, oh so coincidentally, they own as well.
Having sewn up the media and entertainment channels, they now want to lock down the internet, choosing how or if you access certain content through your computer, your iPhone, or other internet capable device--they again figure correctly that people will be not be paying attention when new laws slip into place that end the democratic nature of the internet, depriving not only you of your digital experience, but also denying further artistic, creative, innovation and educational opportunities to the poor, both in the US, as well as in developing and third world nations.
But, you may complain, I'm only one person, what change can I effect? Well, that's exactly the kind of thinking that they want, a feeling of being powerless, as they fund politicians that will legislate in their and not your interests--indeed, why vote at all? It's so screwed up, and just one person has no real voice. Or so they want you to believe.
Luckily, it's not too late; and indeed, one lone voice can effect great change--it's the silence signaling consent that gives them what they want, both now, and for the everlasting future. You can choose to do nothing, or you can take steps with your mind and your wallet and your voice, both on the internet and in real life, to make others aware of what the future may hold; you can choose to do so, or you can just click on by, and shrug 'Linux nut'--either way you are making a choice. The status quo, or significant change. If you are happy with the direction things are going in all the ways that I have listed above, then nothing to see here; if you are not happy with those things, or what their future holds for you, then you may want to know a bit more about open source and how it can help you out. It really is as simple as that.
Will update with links shortly.