The Great Digital Decluttering

I'm currently working through the process of minimizing or eliminating the garbage of corporate crap from my digital life.

As you can imagine, it's a slow process as these corporations - think Google, Facebook, Windows, et al. - make it very hard to leave them. Cory Doctorow refers to this as "switching costs" or "vendor lock-in."

Ultimately, these companies lure you in with a "free" product that is initially useful, but then they milk you for every bit of profit they can. From selling you upgrades to selling your digital identity, while the usefulness they once provided disappears.

In other words, the product isn't the product. YOU are the product.

Here's how I'm becoming a user instead of being used:

• Switched to the Linux distro Pop!_OS
  • No more bloatware or data sent to Microsoft.
  • Everything feels snappy and fast again.
  • I have much more control over my environment.
  • A huge selection of useful software that costs me $0.
  • It freed up so much space on my hard drive.
  • Modern Linux distros don't have a huge issue running Windows programs you might want to port over.
  • Surprising, even to me, but if you need detailed help on how to navigate an issue, Gemini and ChatGPT produce extremely helpful and detailed tutorials that make things easy.
  • I used to be a Linux SysAdmin, so command line is nothing new to me. It's not as scary to use as you think. That being said, modern distros require very little knowledge in this regard. If you're a power user, though? It's like computing on God Mode.
• Started using an open source, self-hosted search engine called SearXNG.
  • No more algorithms!
  • Organic search. Real results.
• Multiple instances to choose from globally.
• Still using Chrome at the moment, but I'm exploring my browser options
  • Brave is an early front-runner due to the way it handles ads, security, and privacy.
  • There's an open source version called UnGoogled Chrome that looks promising, but I'll need to investigate that one further.
• Looking for replacements to Google Workspace, but the options are limited or unappealing.
  • There are plenty of open source alternatives, but most look like they're from the late 90s and they don't function the way I like.
  • I know Google Workspace inside and out. Despite the downsides of data collection and platform lock-in, I think I'll be staying there until something better presents itself.
• At least temporarily, I've gotten rid of most of my social media.
  • I ditched X altogether finally. Since Musk took over, it's only gotten progressively worse. If you want to be outraged by something new every few minutes, it's the perfect platform.
  • I kept Reddit. Even though it's not much better, I can at least find interesting or useful information there.
  • Mastodon is now my social platform of choice. I love the interoperability of ActivityPub and the indie feel of the Fediverse. They have their own outrage culture, but it's easy to filter that noise out. I also very much appreciate the lack of platform lock in. You can switch instances at a moment's notice and not lose anything.
  • I still have Facebook, but I never post there. It's for keeping in touch with family and friends that still use the platform. I log in once every one or two weeks to touch base, then I'm out.
  • I may incorporate more platforms back into the mix, but it will be intentional and with purpose.

This is still very much a work in progress on my part.

I can say that my digital life has become less about doom scrolling and more about finding interesting new things.

Less depression, less anxiety, less feeling hopeless about humanity.

They say you are what you eat. My digital diet is getting a lot healthier as of late.