Summary: US tech sucks, time for something different (Linux, degoogled Android)
For the last 10 years, I’ve been slowly removing myself from US tech companies for a multitude of reasons. Privacy invasion (to sell more ads) and malicious UX (to sell more ads) were the main drivers, but definitely not the only ones.
It doesn’t take long to find examples of controversies with US tech companies, but just for the reader, I thought I’d bundle some:
Some of these are definitely worse than others (Facebook), but all in all, each of these companies has used their monopoly of the market to stomp competition, massively invading our privacy, and more importantly, they continue to do so to this day.
I’ve always wondered why most of my friends and family still remain on these platforms, although the privacy invasion alone was enough for me to make a change.
As a thought experiment, where would you draw the line if a stranger would speak to you in the street and asked:
- Your name
- Your birthdate
- Your sexual preference
- Your friends and family
- Your phone number
- Your address
- Your photos
- Your political preferences
- Your religion
- Your interests and likes
- Which websites you visit
- Where you are throughout the day
- Your purchasing patterns
- and so on…
I think most of us would stop at your sexual preference or family? Hell, I’d stop at name 😅 but maybe that’s just me. So why is giving it to these companies okay? The scale? I’m merely a small cog? I’ve accepted that everybody doesn’t care as much as me and that the convenience trumps any of the downsides.
But all of that is changing. Now that the US is speed running totalitarianism in the most comically absurd way, I feel the above has just become more relevant.
Try to imagine the list above in the hands of an oppressive regime. Finding your political opponents is only a database query away:
1 | SELECT name, address, phone FROM people WHERE political_party != 'the_right_one' |
It’s a Gestapo’s or Staci’s wet dream.
I might consider myself lucky that I’m not a minority in any way, but it’s a fallacy to consider yourself safe in totalitarian regimes. Even if you are not the enemy, it might be your friends, family, or colleagues. Eventually, everyone becomes a target, as it’s the only way these regimes can survive: fear, oppression, and violence.
So, after quitting Facebook, Google, and removing as much information as possible from the internet, I’ve decided to take the next step: removing Apple and Microsoft from my life.
I look forward to going back to Linux (NixOS on Framework) and trying out a degoogled phone (Fairphone). I’m choosing clunky interfaces, kernel hacking, driver hell, and worse hardware, over all of the above.
PS: After writing all of this, maybe, just maybe, I’m just old and cranky over Windows pushing me to upgrade to Windows 11 🤬 LEAVE MY OS ALONE
PSS: At this time, I don’t see a path to remove all US companies that is not ridiculously time-expensive. So at this time, GitHub (work), LinkedIn (work), and smaller companies are still ok. But consider yourself warned (he screams into the void).