I have been pro privacy and anti data harvesting for many years now, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult staying off some platforms. Mostly Meta.

Over the years I have convinced most of my friends and family to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. However, there are still chat groups that I am missing from, and trying to keep up to date with local events seems next to impossible without Facebook or Instagram.

Additionally, I am finding it more and more tiring to have the awkward “No I don’t have WhatsApp. No I don’t have Facebook either. Or Instagram, sorry. Do you want to try an app that you’ve never heard of to stay in contact with me?” every time I meet someone new.

I saddens me that it feels like the multi-billion dollar data harvesting companies are winning, but I no longer know if this is a hill that I’m willing to die on.

What are your thoughts on what we have to give up in our lives just to stay in control of our personal information?

  • haui
    9•6 months ago

    Understandable thought process imo. I‘m in the opposite boat.

    For years I didnt care about data privacy and the amount of phishing attacks and spam mails skyrocketed.

    I had all the social media accounts, connected to each other for convenience. Bit tech cloud managed my pictures and everything else. Stuff started vanishing off of my favorite streaming services.

    Then I started to migrate away from big tech and started my own home server. Ripped all my old dvds on there so I dont have to put them in the player. I disabled my facebook account, twitter, instagram, you name it.

    Now I can chat with people on my Linux phone (postmarketOS), watch videos on my peertube instance, write this comment over my lemmy instance, etc. Is it easy? No. But its doable.

    I do still have whatsapp but i dont use the app and have bridged the 2.5 people that dont have matrix to it. Same for signal and discord. I only use matrix and a couple people switched because matrix can help them use one app only.

    Now comes the hard part: is this end user ready? No, not at all. Stuff can break like every half a year and some people are just tech illiterate and will have constant problems because they have no patience.

    I cant promise you that it works for everyone. But it should work for the 80% or so who are able to follow a basic video tutorial on how to cross sync new devices in matrix for example.

    Oh and the whiners will also have a bad time. If you need „perfect“ and „polished“, apps wont always be up to your standards and you should embrace big tech. They make it perfect for you you give them your data. Thats their way of saying thanks /s

    Addition: The general idea for those who can tinker should also be to not only use but contribute. Either financially or otherwise. The software is dependent on it.