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Heat Death of the Internet
(www.takahe.org.nz)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Blaming the user and saying there are alternatives really doesn't work.
If you don't stand up against Pixel phones getting enshittified, then Fairphones are also going to get enshittified. If you don't stand up against U.S. airports getting spying facial recognition, then U.K. airports are also going to get spying facial recognition because they now know that nobody will give a shit.
Now Firefox is also getting enshittified, because just look at the most popular web browser. Google Chrome is literal spyware and they get no actual pushback, and are instead getting rewarded so Firefox copies it.
So, for example, instead of saying "Stop moaning about Netflix and torrent your movies even though you might get arrested if you don't have good opsec in countries with strict copyright laws.", push back against those changes. Boycotting works, telling your friends and family how Netflix is fucking them over without putting the blame on them works, even a Mastodon post works. But a half-assed response to an obscure article that blames the user doesn't work.
It doesn't matter, there were plenty of people who gave a shit about a law in the UK that made protest legality be at discretion of the government and it still passed. The people are increasingly powerless, and most people don't understand and don't want to understand anyway.
They've been getting pushback since like the 2010s. It hasn't changed shit.
Doesn't matter they'll pass anyway because most people just take it.
Lmao. Isn't that literally what I'm proposing too though? Boycotting all that tech, hoping that en-masse that's enough to stop the tide?
Spoiler: they don't care
No normal person has left twitter.
Most people aren't even aware how shitty Elon is or what he's done to the platform quality and algorithm wise, they stay away from politics and scroll memes.
One of my normie IRL friends was trying to prove to me - a trans person - how twitter is actually good and hasn't changed much. I never used twitter much but I had a blocklist 10k+ of shinigami reds by the time I abandoned ship.
Imagine explaining to that same guy the more nuanced slow early stages enshittification of Reddit.
The man doesn't even get Reddit, I don't mean he doesn't like it but I think he straight up doesn't understand it. His perception of it is that it's some kind of nerd platform where people write long paragraphs about stuff and the surface level understanding of "argue on the internet" and that's lame and he'll go all "redditor" at seeing a video longer than 30s or more than one paragraph of text, though the irony of him also using it for every Google search doesn't seem to bother him at all.
The fediverse is beyond most people I reckon. So are all the things I said. So is the concept that some corpo is fucking you over or the concept of free software or the free and open internet. It's all over, the dream is over.
Being a doomer is good and all but it doesn't accomplish anything either. I agree with your points too, and am aware that what you're proposing is boycotting, but the way you propose it is not the way, as per the video I linked.
At this point, I guess we just do what we can do and try to have ~~blind~~ optimism.
I don't really give a shit what Rossman thinks and I don't owe anyone "good activism" and especially not according to his opinion. Don't get me wrong, he's a good dude and all, I have nothing against him.
But imo, the time for "activism" has long passed, if people weren't onboard with it after the past 10 years of "activism" and things have only gotten worse I don't see much point in it. I'd rather scream into the void, harmonizing with the faint echo chorus of downvotes.
Okay, I guess. Have a great rest of your day.
You too.