There's been a German blog post going round the last few days, in the general tone of self-hosting and choosing European-hosted alternatives, or just more community-focused and decentralized than walled gardens, with a focus on US megacorps.
I found it quite interesting and of course I went along with the list and what I use:
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"change your e-mail provider" - been self-hosting mail for decades, but still have a GMail address (for Android) and as a last resort (e.g. mailing my boarding passes there in case of catastrophic failures of my mail server while I am at the airport or away - I could only solve the latter with a freemailer or bugging a friend).
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"use a privacy friendly search engine" - I am mostly on DuckDuckGo but I regularly fall back to Google because I am impatient when the results are bad.
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"messengers without big brother" - Guess I fail here. I use Signal and Matrix and IRC, but I also use WhatsApp and Discord because that's where people I want to talk to are. Would gladly scrap both.
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"the networking effect" - now this is mostly wishful thinking, I've spent enough time trying to convert people, it doesn't work for me.
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"open source voice assistant" - Pass, switched off on my Android voice thing, never used anything else either.
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"Fediverse/Mastodon" - Using that daily, have deleted Instagram and Twitter accounts, kept Facebook because I'm only logging in once a year anyway and got tons of old contacts there, it's a "just in case" thing.
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"your own cloud" - I should probably migrate my calender from Google, but I don't need any other features here, I use Syncthing for some files.
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"calendar and addresses" - yeah, I was too quick with the last one. I have (hopefully unsynced) phone numbers in my Android phone, zero addresses there.
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"routing/maps" - Maybe I should get in the habit of using OSM more, but last time I tried it it wasn't great. Still using Google Maps often.
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"LibreOffice and co" - I've not used MS Office at home for probably 15 years, I do have "unimportant" stuff in Google Docs.
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"PeerTube" - Yeah well, if I was publishing videos, maybe - but I don't see how it makes sense if you're watching stuff on YouTube that is... on YouTube.
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"privacy friendly video calls" - Not sure when I last had a private video call, maybe twice in 2020/2021 - not going to speak up at work here, as I don't really care for work stuff.
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"buy locally" - Guess this is where I am unabashedly an apologist, but I've always hated shopping (with a couple exceptions), so while I am trying to use "local" online shops, unless it's clothing I am just so done with local shops. I live in Munich and would expect them to have stuff available, but everything I usually want needs to be ordered anyway, so I am saving myself the hassle and just order it directly. And the customer experience at Amazon is actually good 95% of the time, unlike with the typical German shop, online or offline.
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"privacy friendly browser" - I guess this is the shit storm du jour with the latest Firefox news, but I've not been using Chrome for many years and sticking with Firefox for now, but I also use LibreWolf and Vivaldi.
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"Android Custom ROM" - I might be wrong but this is just ridiculous. While I would very much like to have an open source OS there, the main killer criterion is banking apps that detect root and other stuff I don't want to, but need to use. I am not a smartphone person, I might play a game while waiting for the bus and talk to people, but I need the 2FA apps for my bank.
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"avoid app tracking" - I think this is just needlessly making your life complicated - I know I am being tracked, I have given up. Play Store it is because I don't think F-Droid on stock Android helps much here.
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"tech oligarchy bad, democracy good" - yes, I agree, I'm not sure I want to spend my free time endlessly researching which companies I should avoid, it's probably too many of them. But if I do know about a connection to certain people I will try to avoid them anyway.
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"use linux" - Yes, I've been doing that for many years and I wish it was a useful nudge people but it's usually not. I know tons of people that basically use their computer because of 1 or several applications that exist on Windows while having zero knowledge about tech. Everyone telling these people to use linux should also provide free support. I'm actually just waiting for my new graphics card to arrive then I will try to switch my main computer to linux, it's been on windows ever since because of games.
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"video editing on linux" - Kdenlive is good even on windows, but I've used it like twice in my life.
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"consuming news" - Kinda disagree with the premise that getting news from social media is bad. Well yes, of course now X is bad, but I get enough news from the fediverse, just as it worked on Twitter before, if you choose your bubble. Also yes, RSS is good and I use it a lot.
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"avoid paypal" - Another one that's really hard. I don't think there's a good alternative except using your credit card directly, but that's still a lot more friction. The realtime transfers are a pipe dream, I think I see this at a small minority of shops. Also EU only and I pay for digital goods as well. I wish there was something, but PayPal is one of the top 5 online things making my life more enjoyable - easy payments.
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"ad blockers" - a no brainer, really
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"streaming music" - I have a Spotify account that I fire up a couple of times per year to listen to an album before buying it. Maybe not perfect, but I can totally accept that.
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"open source AI" - just getting started/not using it anyway
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"home assistant and co" - I don't do IoT and smarthome, I have 2 shellys to measure power consumption from time to time.
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"vpn providers" - First thing I don't really have an opinion on, I've never paid for a VPN, I used to self-host, currently doing a couple things with Tailscale.
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"tesla" - Does not apply, would never have bought one anyway, even if I was a person to buy an expensive new car, or use an electric one, or need one at all.
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"catch all email and throwaway mobile number" - E-Mail is a given but I've never found a sim/setup for a price I liked so far. I try to just not give my mobile number to services, but if I have to...
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"step up" - Another one where past me was more enthusiastic than current me.
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"touch grass" - Now this is just bullshit, I'm online as much as needed and staying offline helps no one. Of course you're not being track offline but it's just not a real argument.
So, how are the results and where do I stand?
I have a feeling that I've already done most of the things that are either important to me or not impossibly hard to do.
- emails and messengers
- social media
- browsers
- whatever software that can be self-hosted without going bankrupt
I also seem to have lost the will to do the right thing at any cost for my personal happiness, you might call it laziness:
- google calendar (but I actually might)
- using google maps (guess I should try though)
- google docs
Then there are the things where I personally judge my usage patterns to be "non-compliant" enough to occasionally benefit and not do the right thing and stop using them altoghether:
- facebook account, hardly used
- spotify acccount, hardly used
The things where I don't see a realistic alternative:
- using whatsapp
- using youtube
And finally there are a few things where I just don't want to spend the money and or mental effort to fix it, or I don't see it as realistic for myself:
- paying for a second SIM and
- keeping a 2nd phone functional/updated, one for banking and one for everything else incl f-droid
- not using amazon
- not using paypal
Also interestingly I have zero problems buying books somewhere else than Amazon, it's mostly specific household items and electronics where I would have to find a physical shop (often impossible in a reasonable time) or spend 5-10 bucks more in a random shop for postage, or worse price.
While I disagree with some of the 30 things on the list, I'd say I mostly agree
- at least in spirit. I'm happy to help people transition away from some of those but I'm over zealous evangelizing.
Anyway, I think it's mostly a good list to think about and analyze your behaviour, if it's not something that's on your mind all the time.