There is something to be said in writing a handwritten letter for someone special once in a while. But I'm so glad that I can just pick up a phone and call my brother who lives in another state and chat with him (no long distance charges). If it's something better said in writing there's email and texts.

There's also the aspect of text's that are more personal that no one really talks about. You can just check in on a friend to see how they are doing without really having any other reason to contact them. I know I appreciate it when that happens to me.

I guess you could write someone a letter asking how they are doing, but if the answer is 'not good', by the time you receive the reply days have passed and you probably missed the opportunity to be there for them when they needed it.

This isn't even considering the environmental benefits of not having to A) produce paper, pens, envelopes, stamps and B) physically deliver the letters.

There's a lot of things about modern tech that you could criticize, but I don't think more/better options for communication is one of them honestly.

I’ll have to do the same with music and get my iPod battery fixed up if I can.

In the meantime you can just load music files onto your phone and play them that way.

For email, I recommend purelymail. It's ran by one guy I believe, but it's a solid cheap service. It's also pretty easy to setup your own email domains. I'm probably just a nerd, but I love custom email domains.

Of course we would.

Usually those middlemen don't open up your mail, read what you wrote, then serve you ads based on that.

If you have bad calligraphy, practice. Won't hurt you.

FOSS is great and I love it but we do have our own idiots/FOSSbros, even if it's not about corporate enshittification.

Saw a post on wafrn (rip on maintenance rn) complaining about FOSSbros and was confused, until they gave an example of this blog post where some asshole was shitting on the author for having criticisms against distros for not being easy and friendly for blind/visually empaired people. The blog post is line-by-line breakdown of that guy's comment.

::: spoiler Original Comment
Okay, first of all, it’s GNU/Linux, not “Linux.” You keep saying “Linux” like it’s some magic OS that fell from the sky, when in reality it’s just the kernel. The real operating system—the one that gives you your shells, your coreutils, your compilers, your sanity—is the GNU system. By not calling it GNU/Linux, you’re erasing the work of decades of free software pioneers who fought tooth and nail so you could sit there whining about things not being shiny enough. You sound like the kind of person who installs Arch and then blogs about how hard it is to use a terminal. News flash: it’s not hard—you’re just lazy.

Second, the whole “Linux isn’t built for people” line? Give me a break. You want an OS that’s “built for people”? What people? Consumers? Passive clickers? People who treat a computer like a Netflix vending machine? GNU/Linux isn’t built for users the way Apple or Microsoft defines users—as data sources for ads, or potential subscribers to whatever crapware-as-a-service model they’re shoving this fiscal quarter. GNU/Linux is built for users in the sense of users who use their brains. If you're allergic to learning, maybe this ecosystem isn’t for you—and that’s fine, just stop trying to dumb it down for the rest of us.

You’re mad because you don’t “feel welcomed”? Look, freedom isn’t about making you feel hugged while your system silently phones home and installs DRM. GNU/Linux is about you owning your machine. It’s about writing a shell script to replace some bloated GUI monstrosity because you can. It’s about reading the manual and understanding your stack, not begging for some dev to “just make it work like macOS.” You’re not being excluded—you’re being challenged. If you don't like that, maybe stick to using ChromeOS with your Google account tethered to every bodily function.

And don’t think I didn’t notice you never once mentioned freedom in your post. Not even once. Not a single nod to software freedom, user control, or the social contract behind all this code. That tells me everything I need to know. You think this is about convenience, when it’s really about liberation. This isn’t about your fonts not rendering or your Wi-Fi card needing a firmware blob. This is about you refusing to confront the responsibilities of being in control.

You want GNU/Linux to “love you back”? That’s not how this works. GNU/Linux isn’t Trump, trying to flatter you while stabbing you in the back. It’s not some product that wants to manipulate your emotions to get you to upgrade. It’s a tool, and it assumes you’re smart enough to wield it. If you want love, get a dog. If you want freedom, open a terminal.
:::

So we do have the "FOSS is always easy and gets the job done, if you can't handle it you're an incompetent toddler who just wants big tech to make your life easy," tech bros. Like that "smart guy makes fun of disenfranchised people for still participating in a society" comic.

I've never been in an uber. Never used an Internet account to order food on an app. Never signed up to spotify or netflix. Never owned an alexis or siri.

I just stay away from that stuff... And it all first started with refusing to subscribe to World Of Warcraft. I stuck with Warcraft 2, and StarCraft. None of that big tech subscription nonsense for me thanks!

Typing works perfectly fine for me in the vast majority of cases.

I would strongly recommend you at least have your own domain if you intend on buying a service from one guy. Everyone can land under a bus one day.

Everything you do relies on some middlemen, it’s just about cutting out layers.

You won’t grow your own food, but you can buy it from a farmer, instead of a store who bought it from a franchise center who bought it from a supply network who bought it from a risk management futures buyer who bought it from a farming company who bought it from a farm.

And not just you, short hand used to be ubiquitous before the computer, now it's all but extinct.

I agree that such large-scale action is effective.

I think the issue people have with "tech" is that much of the software and devices sold take up too much space and do things people don't want them to do, without offering choice, configurability, and options for full control

A guy I worked with, not even super closely, left me a handwritten card when he moved on saying it was a pleasure working with me. I did not expect it and almost certainly didn’t deserve it but I still have that card somewhere.

Good luck self hosting something to message

Dude, it’s pretty easy to set up matrix on a docker container

your contacts

Fuck you’re right

That was nice.

I'm a person yes! and you're welcome

Right at the start, there were sometimes the "you wouldn't steal a car" warning about pirating movies but there never has been ads in the middle of whatever you were watching.

that sure would be a BIG bus!! i didn't know flashmobs went this far...