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.

Ping me when you changed the world with whatever you are actually doing behind that keyboard

Masturbating, I'm masturbating. And so are you when you think that voting with your wallet does anything.

Lots of things have always had middlemen. Any sales representative you've ever encountered is a commission-driven middleman. Cars, insurance, housing, the guy at the phone store - they all exist solely to make money doing what a well made website is valuable of. If a company has a sales team, they ate unnecessary middlemen.

I agree the examples are all over the place.

I drive a pre-online car I can fix with the help of a friend, PC is Linux mint, laptop is Mac but highly restricted. My android device is silent, my iPhone is used for work only. My music is ripped and downloaded.

Masturbating, I’m masturbating.

Wow! Do it in public fully naked with the reasons of the protest tattooed on your body. You may hit the news and reach lots of people!

We (mostly my brother and I) convinced our octogenarian parents to switch the whole family group to Signal, many years ago. It works nicely. What saddens me though, is that Signal will never replace WA for most people, it's Just One More App for them.