this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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As a historian, I’ve studied the major consumer boycotts of history. We can take down ChatGPT and send a powerful signal to Silicon Valley, says author and historian Rutger Bregman

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[–] Wammityblam@lemmy.world 84 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

This is such a bleak time for tech enthusiasts.

It really feels like every single major tech company is making either absolutely moronic or completely evil choices

You are just stuck choosing between different flavors of shit

[–] aproposnix@scribe.disroot.org 62 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Its a major opportunity for the FOSS community. We need to step up.

Proprietary tech does completely suck though. Its all driven by capital.

[–] IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Hardware is going to move to streaming. They want your hardware in a server farm and they eventually won't let people buy hardware. That's the future.

It's coming...

The time for people to be going all out with anger was probably 2001. They basically already won and are in complete control of America. Including the FBI and military.

I don't understand why people (myself included) are still participating in their games and culture. We are cogs in their evil machine.

It's blatantly obvious it's over already.

[–] Wammityblam@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I should have been angrier about tech when I was 5.

[–] morto@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

Never too late. the idea that it's past time only benefits the big tech

We can stop using their services, move to open source, stay with older hardware (so that they don't get money from us) and promote the few open hardware projects

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly what I was thinking. If I were to be angry enough about this when it actually mattered and I could have steered the boat, I was way too young too even see that it was happening.

Not to say I don’t actively pursue and promote OSS all the time, but I feel like the impact is so much more minimal than it could have been.

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[–] myrmidex@belgae.social 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You are just stuck choosing between different flavors of shit

Or self-hosting your shit. Or at least find a friend who does...

[–] Wammityblam@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

True, but getting more expensive to do so by the day because of these AI companies.

[–] myrmidex@belgae.social 3 points 3 weeks ago

Fair point, no argument here! Can't wait for it all to implode, I've got a shopping list ready for when it does :)

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

It sucks even more to be a tech worker, your job is constantly threatened by automation, but you also hate working for an evil company that does not care about you, but good luck finding a non evil company that pays 6 figures

[–] Melusine@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 3 points 3 weeks ago

I guess we need to dip in retrotech

[–] notwhoyouthink@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 weeks ago

Their only interest is profit, it was only a matter of time for that interest to consolidate into corruption and greed. In a world where making choices that benefit all do not generate as much short term gains as making choices that benefit a select few, it is easy to see exactly why these companies operate the way they do. Their interests are not ours.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We should have regulated tech (and hard) decades ago. Were Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg not example enough for tech enthusiasts, or now that it’s too late is it the right time to shed our naive fairy tales about the Billionaire Supermen who want nothing more than to save us all?

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[–] morto@piefed.social 42 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Don't stop at chatgpt. Cancel any subscription you have! Stop using any big corporation you can!

[–] nucleative@lemmy.world 29 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Internet subscription canceled! See you on the other side brother

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Pirate the internet! Hack the planet! DDOS the universe!

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I wish it was possible, Imagine mixing meshtastic with tcp/ip. it would be as slow as mid 90s, but forums/text based internet that doesn't rely on anything but communal decentralized infrastructure?

[–] JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 4 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Meshcore might be a bit better suited for this, if you want to reach a forum further than 50-100km away reliably.

With the room servers it almost supports this use case already

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[–] Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 28 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I think it’s optimistic to think they would even care about a boycott now. By volunteering to cross the lines that Anthropic wouldn’t cross, they’ve achieved Military Industrial Complex status. It doesn’t matter if you don’t pay for a subscription, you’ll fund them with your tax dollars whether you want to or not. Their mass surveillance tools are too valuable to let them fail, so they’ll get propped up and bailed out no matter what.

[–] Yliaster@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Not all GPT users are American/residing in America

[–] unit327@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago

Every additional customer using their product currently causes them to lose money, hand over fist.

You should still boycott them anyway though, they care about user numbers and user activity.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

That is assuming OpenAI‘s tools are actually that powerful and useful or that Altman can keep convincing the US government they are. I would say it‘s still a very fragile enterprise.

I still wouldn‘t bet against the AI market anymore. Because even though the bubble must burst eventually the US government would intervene. There is no free market, just oligarchs enriching themselves all the way to he top.

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[–] XLE@piefed.social 17 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

And keep in mind that Anthropic is just as pro-war and morally bankrupt as OpenAI; the only difference is they didn't donate as much to the Trump coffers.

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[–] the_armchair_potato@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

People actually pay for ChatGPT? I am completely out of the loop lol. Maybe thats a good thing.

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I’m a software developer for a small company with the two owners being the engineers and they have a Copilot subscription. It saves you countless man hours.

Looking up documentation is very rare now as it’s consumed that much data. It’s not perfect but it’s not we are vibe coding either it’s more like intellisense n steroids. We have lots of practices for how we do things and it learns from that context.

I wouldn’t pay for it for personal use but business use it’s actually great for us.

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[–] Sims@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago

All US big tech feudal lords are helping the Fascist US regime. Even Antrophic. Boycott them all..

[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

This has been discussed on here many times. Barely anyone pays for LLMs. Only companies, corporations, and a few content creators do pay. Your common folk overwhelming majority does not.

[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 3 points 3 weeks ago

And yet, threads have been flooded the past couple of days with users proudly declaring how they're canceling their subscriptions after funneling who knows how much money into Altman's pockets unironically and without an ounce of shame lmfao

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[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Bregman is a treasure. Very based analysis of societal problems and actually doing shit instead of only observing.

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[–] pirate2377@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Normal citizens actually pay for AI??

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[–] obinice@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Every penny given to a US company is bankrolling their government through taxes, and thus funding authoritarianism.

OpenAI has direct government contracts sure, but yeah.

I agree it sucks.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

That’s why I’m telling myself that my unemployment is a heroic assault on fascism.

[–] enumerator4829@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Don’t pay for it. But use it. A lot.

GPUs are very expensive, so if you have them generating (for free) short stories of happy little kittens riding the subway in Manhattan or whatever, you are costing them a lot of money. Just don’t give them any data.

[–] courval@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

This is the way

[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 6 points 3 weeks ago

I can't believe this actually has to be said. "Stop funding the death star!" Who the hell is actually paying for a tier subscription for that slop?

People just really don't give a shit at all do they lmao

[–] br0da@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Cancelled 2 days ago. Feel terrible for not doing it sooner.

[–] YourItalianScallion@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

You'll be glad you quit when you did. ChatGPT is rotting people's brains.

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[–] NOT_RICK_SANCHEZ@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

I did my part this morning because fuck Sam Altman

[–] NostraDavid@programming.dev 4 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Spoiler: All Americans that pay taxes are bankrolling authoritarianism. People who buy items from America are bankrolling authoritarianism.

Are all you Americans going to stop paying taxes?

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

They haven't used their 2nd amendment yet, so I doubt it.

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I recently cancelled my Office 365 subscription because I'm no longer willing to financially support Microsuck's bullshit. It was hard too. There isn't another groupware solution that works as well as Exchange. It was important enough for me to make the move despite that. I'm not completely cured of my Windows dependency yet but I'm working on it.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

You guys can afford subscriptions? I just make it toil for no reason because I’m a real capitalist

[–] so_pitted_wabam@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 weeks ago

Already done. Both because they are a corrupt company run by legendary grifter SCAM ALTMAN. But also because GPT is inferior to Claude in almost every way. Even Gemini is leaps ahead of GPT at this point.

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