I've long held the sense that given too much power, the systems we've built cannot prevent the contortion that befalls companies in the endless chase of shareholder appreciation. This is in spite of me being a strong proponent of a capitalistic society, we should ensure it's an ethical society.
Let's talk alternatives
Ideally people should vote with their feet, wallets and headspace. Currently a small minority of corporations dominate the tech space. They take this defacto standardisation as a blank cheque to play with our headspaces, time and in the most sinister of interpretations our futures. (i.e. Cambridge Analytica)
Not to suggest this is implicitly negative. The same centralisation has likely enabled rapid progress in a number of areas (EVs, SpaceX, AI etc) thanks to concentrations of money, brains and power. Potentially I'm simply not a pure technocrat but recent events have demonstrated time and time again that one centralised power does not often lead to the most moralistic decision making process...
Unfortunately people appear to be perpetually lazy or at least ignorant of the consequences to which they are not directly victim to or able to see.
Considering this, I make the simple argument, that to be moral and to maintain said same convenience, doesn't come with great cost, simply a slightly more burdensome upfront cost. Below are my recommendations:
| Traditional Software | Alternative Softare |
|---|---|
| Google Photos | Immich |
| Netflix | Jellyfin |
| Spotify/Apple Music | Jellyfin |
| ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini | Mistral |
| GSuite/Microsoft Office | Libre Office |
| Windows/MacOS | Your Linux Distro of Choice (Arch btw) |
| Android/iOS | GrapheneOS/Ubuntu Touch/PostmarketOS |
A Small Furball
Some of this comes alongside the expectation of learning to self host, though I think the real end goal of society is true democratisation of technology, to the extent where all people will own the hardware which their data is being processed upon.
We wouldn't let people snoop in our homes without warrant, so why are we consistently allowing them to snoop on our mental state without the same scrutiny?