Good luck self hosting something to message your contacts.

E-mail is a thing.

Pre-telemetry cars from the naughties are the sweet spot. No cell connection either. New cars are icky.

You could get one by installing an aftermarket ECU and a fuel injection system in a car from those eras. It's probably harder than most people would be willing to do, but it's definitely doable

All your friends are on a group chat and they will periodically mail you the updates. Sure, why not?

Oh how I long for the day someone invents a car without a touchscreen.

Ðe peer group really is a concern. And OSS kind of stinks for normies much of ðe time.

I got ðe family on Circles, and my SIL (ðe one with ðe toddler) loved it... until it lost all of her posts for ðe family, and ðen shut down.

I really like the blog and videos of Reject Convenience, he actually does something similar with his own life.

I'm going back in a lot of areas, yeah.

When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you need to go backwards to correct and go forward again

Dude walked face first into that one.

you lost contacts with 95% of your contacts you used to hear through apps. Last time you met a group of friends was when you randomly met them in a restaurant having a dinner together. “We invited you but you didn’t reply”. The 5% still calling you wants your money.

Having done that I don't miss 95% of that 95%. The real ones will follow you. The rest know how to find you.

I think the point is that we're deluded to think that voting with our wallets does anything. You still work. You still buy. You still support the system. The one step you're taking only gets you partway from the couch to the refrigerator. It doesn't get you out the door and into a protest that would actually make a difference.

Cut out Spotify for Navidrome

Cut out Netflix for Jellyfin

Keep it all secure and accessible with Wireguard

All of the above solutions are free.

Run all of the above in docker on any old laptop. An llm can provide instructions.

As someone who walks everywhere....I am not fit. So no flip side. It's uphill both ways

or, you know, you can have best of both worlds with open technologies. tech that you own and control.

My family and immediate friends are all on my Matrix server.

I have my own dedicated public server, so I can selfhost anything I want. And I do selfhost a lot.

You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.

Of course, because I'm no more 16 arguing that a revolution is the solution.

That’s exactly what is so nice about FOSS based systems. You can use technology but without the tech bros and the corporate enshittification.

Indeed, you are thoroughly pacified. Your objections and moral outage quelled and your sense of significance sustained by the illusion that simply buying from a different conglomerate will have any impact.

Any suggestion that your impotent protest is inadequate must surely come from a childish fool.

I selfhost since so long that some of my domains could vote, but I still need some "mainstream" channels to be reached by several people.

If we can argue that close friends will put extra effort to contact you on whatever you use, it's also true that your landlord, the plumber, the chick you picked up last night, won't give a shit and simply consider you a lunatic 99% of times if you tell them to use anything non-mainstream.