I see a few comments about self hosting stuff to escape the clutches of big tech, and while all that is effective to a high degree, it is beyond the abilities of the general populace.

Besides, I am also of the opinion that not everything has to be digital or smart.

I relish writing and receiving letters, it is tangible and indicates commitment. Fortunately, postal system isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I like reading newspapers and it was sad to see all shops in my neighbourhood stop selling them during or after COVID. It was equally sad to see a lot of magazines not survive that period.

I miss my old TV that was simpler to use and started quicker than my newer smart TV. It does not matter if I disconnect the latter from the internet, it takes its time to load up. Besides, I don’t see any perceivable difference in picture quality from the distance I watch from.

Older laptops, though heavier, were more repairable. In certain aspects, they are better than modern ones: more tactile keyboard, nicer screen ratio (4:3). Of course, the newer laptops decimate the old ones when it comes to performance and screen quality but that is just technology progressing.

I could keep going on with a plethora of product categories. But across all my points, I wish some companies could continue offering such products, at least to a customer base that is willing to pay more just to support the existence of those products.

Yeah middlemen have been a part of almost all commerce from the start, every store, every trade and most services are in some way middlemen. I think the comic's message is good but is attributing the terrible actions of llm to middlemen in error.

It's so hard for people to agree that we should be doing something. Instead you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy. If OP was a hypocrite but they still said the right thing why would you deliberately disagree? What would motivate you to act?

on the other hand, there is generally not much to discuss if you have an agreeing position. right?

Don't be ashamed of being a Luddite. The Luddites were actually fighting for a righteous cause.

Too true, just didn’t think I’d be following their lead…

Sure, but where are the comments disagreeing with the disagree-ers? It's all attack, no defense.

fair point, but to get there you must go to the comments to begin with, which I believe might be less likely you do when you don't have something to say.

WhatsApp is just one more App for me. There are two people I wish I could convince to use signal but cannot…

Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.

And people still use email.

we should be doing something

Ok, let's dive into it. What does "doing something" exactly mean? I've been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.

"Doing something" means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people "doing something" means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.

What does it mean for you "doing something"? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I'll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always "very small".

Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.

you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy

Who said I'm not doing anything? OP said "You still work. You still buy. You still support the system." to which I replied that I'm no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race... and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.

If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don't know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.

Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it's an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.

Did you read it till the end?

Is this supposed to be satire? How is print media owned by massive conglomerates, flip phones with no OSS firmware, handwritten letters delivered by a literal middleman, avoiding the middlemen??

Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.

But then you are simply using Whatsapp with extra steps.

I was with you until 4:3. You should be locked up.

On a more serious note: Framework laptops. More repairable than the laptops of yore, minus the soldered CPUs which seem unavoidable in laptops now.

When ceiling fans and AC units requires an account, yeah, something's wrong.

They're also less safe and efficient. They're fun, but objectively worse cars to run nowadays that parts can also be hard to come by.

I am now using lineage which is fine but still way too restrictive for my tastes. I tried using linux(postmarketos) as I am fine with a lot of inconveniences but was unable to make or take calls, which is kind of a hard line. There should just be an android based phone os which is degoogled and rooted by default, but really the problem lies with the hardware, I think. There need to be more phones with open firmware to make an alternative os really possible.

An inexperienced typer might be slower than 40 wpm. I've seen people type maybe 10 words per minute using only index fingers and looking for every letter. An inexperienced touch typer is maybe 40-60 wpm range though.

I do up to around 140 wpm which many people think is lightning fast but then there's people who can do 250 and I can't even comprehend being that fast. Goddamn Sean Wrona.

Just to give some perspective.

They’re not defining “middleman” in the traditional sense of an intermediary in an economic exchange. The first panel introduces a new definition of the term as a tech bro attempting to insinuate himself into the process of communicating with others. The remedies offered would indeed seem to preclude this type of middleman from interfering with the process.