This really resonates with me. I haven't gone so far as to run LineageOS (because I want to be able to use Lyft, Google Pay, etc.), but I do some of this stuff. I have a Raspberry Pi controlling all my smart home hardware, with the internet-connected bit running on a server I control. My TV is from 2007 even though I'd really like a larger, better, higher-resolution TV, because I don't want a TV that tries to connect to the internet. I run Linux as my daily driver because I don't want Windows tracking everything I do and popping up ads in the start menu, and don't like Apple's trend toward locking down their OSes to the point where it's not even my hardware anymore.
I would love to get Google out of my life, but Google Photos is easily my favorite phone app, and I still get a lot of value out of GDocs, GDrive, etc., and managing a Nextcloud instance sounds like more work than I want to do.
I do feel like I have an antagonistic relationship with technology, and as someone who works in technology, that makes me really sad.
I'm reminded that, in the mid-90s, one of Microsoft's branding slogans was "where do you want to go today?" While that seems funny in retrospect, back then MS's software really did let you do more or less whatever you wanted. These days our platforms are becoming more and more locked down, and meanwhile they're actively leaking our personal information to third parties who are the poorest stewards of it imaginable.
I want to be optimistic for the future of technology, but it's really hard to be.
Today the slogan for all big Americans tech companies is more like "we are going in this direction and you are probably dumb enough to just agree with our terms".
FWIW, generally proprietary apps will work just fine with LineageOS and Play services. Where things get nonstandard is using LineageOS + microG. The former still has most of Google's built in surveillance, but the advantage it brings is a consistent interface between devices.
No idea specifically about Google Pay though, like if it demands a proprietary device for "security". I personally don't see the appeal of new forms of surveilled payments - the plastic cards in my wallet work just fine for that.
Also I can't say this enough - if you're apprehensive about trying out LOS or LOS+microG, get a second device. It only runs on certain devices anyway, so most likely you'll be buying used for $100-$200. You don't have to take a leap all at once - rather you can try different apps gradually.
(Although at this point I hope Pinephone is gaining on LOS. You might consider focusing your attention there, even though it's much less ready for prime time from what I understand)
> managing a Nextcloud instance sounds like more work than I want to do.
there are multiple hosted options where you don't have to manage the server - instead, you'll get admin access to your nextcloud, you can add accounts for Family members or freelancers whenever needed and it mostly "just works". When using a Nextcloud client, the only additional step that is needee compared to Dropbox etc is providing the server URL.
Wow, that "where do you want to go today" really tripped a strong nostalgia vein and reminded me of the old Microsoft Interactive CD Sampler: https://youtu.be/FrD78hULKIQ?t=234
I’m curious, what’s so great about Google photos? I’m on iCloud photos but looking to move away from it in the near future in protest of the recent infringement by Apple
I like to think that most of the open-source/free software solutions the author mentions aren't _that_ bad. I've run a pi-hole and barely noticed it. Raspberry Pi or old Arch Linux laptop as a NAS? Worked for me and required basically no maintenance. PC connected to a projector/TV? Easier learning curve for me as it's "just" a PC and will do everything that a PC can do such as effortless playback of subtitled media, low latency twitch tv, playback from NAS, etc...) A slightly involved network setup (discrete router, access points, etc.)? Basically pain-free and if one device kicks the bucket replacing a single component is no big deal.
The one exception is the phone. Phones are a wonder (disaster?) of vertical integration and if you're outside one of the two walled gardens it's like living on another planet. Ride-hailing apps, games, dating-apps, even SMS! can be unsupported or flaky on the analogous open alternatives. After the recent Apple announcement I ordered a Pinephone but I'm not expecting much more than a toy.
Accordingly, you can do most of the above and have it fly under the radar when having guests over, but the moment you whip out the non *droid/iOS phone around friends you've outed yourself.
I think he had a point, some OSS software is objectively just bad - UX, UI, bugs, overly complicated. That’s not me trying to personally attack them it’s that just so many seem to lack any kind of QA - some bugs I’ve encountered are reproducible almost immediately with using the program.
Basic integration of all these solutions often ends up with a less satisfactory solution than a “commercial”/closed source version.
I’m sure some naysayers will come up with platitudes like “no funding makes it more difficult” and “well it’s open source just fix it”.
For the first one, like I said some of the bugs or cumbersome problems are not even difficult to reproduce. Basic pointing and clicking by the devs would find it.
For the second, come on, they can’t just misdirect all their users with “fix it yourself” - we might not know how, might not know the language or framework, or simply might not want to spend the time trying to figure out some tedious workflow involving self hosted Git repos or some poorly documented spaghetti build process. At the end of the day the devs themselves are in the best position to fix.
This guy sounds like me ~8 years ago. Eventually I gave up on the idealism and settled on some compromises. Mostly I have a few bright lines I won't cross: I don't use Facebook or Amazon or any of the "gig economy" scams; I don't participate in any of the IoT or smart home/automation crap; I don't have wearables; I use an ad-blocker to do my part to kill the ad-economy. I've completely given up on privacy online: there is no such thing as computer security and the only winning move is not to play. Don't put anything you care about being private onto a computer. Your doctor will, but there's nothing you can do about that.
It's worth exploring where the limits of digital asceticism are for yourself, and then scaling it back to a place you find reasonable.
> My wife complains that none of the devices in our house work, and she’s right
This hasn't been my experience at all. I find my devices often work much better than my peers' devices. Just yesterday, I blew someone's mind by being able to unzip a password protected zip and open a password protected pdf with my phone. They had been sending people documents like this for years and never saw anyone open it with their phone. Open source software is often more powerful than the mainstream alternatives, and the algorithms are easier to control, rather than be controlled by. Yes, it takes a bit of knowhow and work to configure things and get them running smoothly. But even the discipline itself has benefits. My guiding principle in all this is "Program or be programmed".
This encapsulates something the article misses: those with technical know-how can typically still thrive with others while living a tech-ascetic lifestyle, but the facade is broken as soon as non-technical friends and family come into the picture.
My most-used means of file transfer is "e-mailed zip file", and generally this works well - until, of course, someone can't open a zip file on their phone. Which I'd assume is most phone users. The phone doesn't need an unzip utility, because a phone user expects a link to some cloud service (Google Photos, etc.) to achieve the same thing. The content doesn't live on the device; it's just a dumb terminal.
Taken to its extreme, I recently had to downmix several HD videos taken on a phone onto a DVD, and _physically mail it overseas_, because even the cloud option wasn't open to the user.
I put a fair bit of work into making the foss tech things in my house _just work_.
For instance, I run a tablet on my kitchen counter with the homeassistant interface. It displays photos when not in use.
My piHole setup (multiple of them for redundancy) can be paused from the homeassistant dashboard.
There's a different dashboard for access to Plex or other web UIs. Everything runs behind a reverse proxy with pretty URLs and authentication is from a single source usually.
The one bit of magic is the vpn for when you're out of the house. So it goes.
> Just yesterday, I blew someone's mind by being able to unzip a password protected zip and open a password protected pdf with my phone.
Are you saying iOS and Android can’t do those things? Because they definitely can — the reason they never saw anyone do it is probably because most people wouldn’t bother trying.
> I blew someone's mind by being able to unzip a password protected zip and open a password protected pdf with my phone.
Yes but can you make a phone call? Have you ever tried to make a phone call on your cell phone and it did not work? I have, on multiple occasions. I cannot say the same thing for a land line.
This guy is me, I have pretty much the same setup.
I hate the latest wave of smart stuff, as it all seems mostly user-hostile.
But even without the latest internet connected, google/alexa integration etc, the microcontrollers in devices have been abused to inflict terrible UI's on users for a long time now.
We need a 'unix philosophy' for household appliances and gadgets. Do one thing, well. Facilitate composition.
For example, I want to switch some floor fans (PSC motors) to much more efficient BLDC versions. They all seem to come with LED or LCD displays, timers, remotes, etc, some even integrate with alexa ... No Thanks! I just want more-efficient and quieter fans, perhaps with potentiometer, or at least, much finer-grained speed control as an upgrade over the 3 fixed speeds I have now, which is inherently possible due to BLDC controller. Perhaps an SPI interface so I can add my own smarts if I want to.
> If you want to live in the eighteenth century so bad, why don’t you get a horse and buggy while you’re at it?
As someone who lives in the country, who does share our back country roads with horses and buggies as well as cars, trucks, and farm equipment... our local community works just fine with many different people making different choices about how much technology they choose to bring into their homes.
I believe thinking about such questions and making your own decisions is an extremely healthy habit, no matter where your final decisions fall.
> Nowadays, to the average person I probably look like a technology curmudgeon
Nowadays, most discussion & thoughts about tech are far more ambivalent & concerned than they used to be. What hope & optimism there is often feels shallow & vapid. Doubt & questions & concerns seem well justified & rampant. Few individuals seem like they are a driver seat- it feels like tech is steering it's own ship and the "where do you want to go" idea, the personal computing idea, is way way way way outmoded & most tech is now us, in the hands of far greater powers that shape what tech will be.
I adore Nolan's writing & thoughts, but to cast himself as an outsider & cantankerous & a crank is not how I read the tea-leaves of society today.
There's very little shiny promising & exciting on the horizon. What progressive technology camps there are tend to have their faith in weird cult-like high high high tech AI, Blockchain, Quantum or other deeply beyond mortal reach technologies. Most mainstream tech has had a shadow but that underbelly's visibility has grown greatly & dissatisfaction & untrustability- conservative, fear based minsets- have quite justifiably exploded in adoption. Almost no where is there a practical progressive view of technology as a can-do adaptable system that we all can use to shape & guide ourselves, our lives, our way of communicating, and our way of thinking.
I for one have unbounded optimism, but it's because I think it would be very easy to start doing for ourselves. I think our assessments are quite real, quite good, I think we understand how dastardly so many of the traps we've fell into are, begun to deeply comprehend the dangers of superficial low-agency software systems & "creator" economics. We're getting enormously better at information tech, even though we're still not using it for anything remotely empowering or good. But some day we'll start to, and we'll get better fast at personal computing, once we start to see & realize what progressive, positive computing basis could possibly look like.
Thanks for this. Having been a bit deflated by the state of tech, but this post has reinvigorated my optimism. Is there somewhere I can read more of your thoughts? And do you know of any forums or groups for tech optimists building the future?
I kinda bounce back and forth between feeling like a tech curmudgeon, and freshly optimistic of the future...among some things that make me look forward to the future include:
* computer makers who focus on either linux or "fix it yourself" audience...like system&6, Pine64, and the newest Framework (laptop empowering DIY...though they sell it with Windows they mention adding formal linux support later)
* also more decentralized communications and networks...like the matrix protocol (and associated distrib. network) along with apps like Element, nheko, fluffychat, etc.), the Briar project, the fediverse (and all its apps and instances like mastodon, pleroma, pixlfed, etc.), and on and on.
* finally, there are more and more headlines related to privacy and controlling one's own devices...which continue to become mainstream. While i'm not expecting to have the big corps change overnight...but capitalism being what it is, at some point these big corps will start to adjust their offerings even if only a little to fill the needs that the layperson consumers are beginning to ask/talk about. Sure, plenty is still fluf - like Apple's supposed marketing around privacy...but that shows that at least Apple and other firms are listening to the signals being eminated that privacy - as only one example - is now a selling feature...i'll defer to the reader if Apple has actuaklly achieved anything here...but the fact that it is a topic that has come up in the mainstream enough for Apple to use it as marketing means that there's something to this...which means that some other big corp or med-sized corp might grab that and run to make services and products that cater to the crowds who favor privacy, control, etc.
...at least that what i'm feeling this morning...fingers crossed that my raspberry pi doesn't stop working because another sdcard has failed. ;-)
Thank you. I really relate to the original post. Like the author, I am spending way too much time getting lineage to work on my phone while trying to run an ecosystem of self hosted services for my community that fewer and fewer folks seem to want, even as they complain about the role of big tech in their lives and culture.
I really appreciate the sense of maybe-I'm-not-totally-alone that your post conveys. Maybe the author would as well? "There are literally dozens of us".
This resonated with me, but instead of investing a lot of time and effort into a losing battle where everything I come up with will ultimately be obsoleted by the incessant churn, I guess I'm going to let my skills rot and live without.
I've lived without a TV (and without a streaming service) for 10 years. My phone has the bare minimum things on it I need to get by. I turn everything off I can. I've railed about location tracking because I know how it works, but damn it, I am not going to mount an all-out war against all my devices and fill my house with an armory of tech. I don't really want to live like that. I want to live like it was the 1990s, maybe, when a PC was just a thing at my desk and it didn't watch me. I guess. That's not coming back now.
All of reality is now infested with tech watching us. Let that sink in. Cameras, smartphones, surveillance drones, location tracking, even microphones, traffic cameras, facial recognition, smart TVs, smart appliances, cars, everything has got its eyes on us.
> My phone has the bare minimum things on it I need to get by. I turn everything off I can. I've railed about location tracking because I know how it works, but damn it, I am not going to mount an all-out war against all my devices and fill my house with an armory of tech. I don't really want to live like that. I want to live like it was the 1990s, maybe, when a PC was just a thing at my desk and it didn't watch me. I guess. That's not coming back now.
This is what I'm planning to personally do. My next phone will probably be only able to make calls and send messages and if I need to use the internet then it will be from the computer. I don't want access to the internet all of the time and I feel my life will be better and filled with more life affirming activities because of it.
At home the router stays off all of the time unless I need to connect. Most of my life is offline anyway. When someone says send me an email and I say I'll write you a letter and deliver it, you'd be surprised what gets done.
I feel that choices about whether to use technology are important and I always ask myself would this improve my life, and most of the time the answer is no. I know my priorities are different to most people but I think I am okay with that. I don't feel like I am missing out on anything and actually gain time, well-being and peace of mind instead.
One recent thing happened here that makes me sympathetic to this attitude. A few years back I bought an older mac mini to build iphone apps on. Wasn't fancy, was 2nd hand but it did the job. Then Apple decided they wouldn't release OS updates for it. Then because of that, it suddenly got impossible to install pretty much anything. I usually develop in .net, but that no longer is supported, and won't run. So Apple turned the thing into a shiny brick effectively. A company with billions of cash idling in the bank won't support older hardware? They could literally afford to do it until the sun explodes.
At this point, they are just giving people the finger simply for the hell of it. I'll bet debian will run on there and I won't ever buy another mac.
The machine isn't really usable with the current OSes, being dog slow at everything.
But you do bring up an interesting point. I have had the same issues with Windows on older hardware.
Which makes me wonder why hardware with 2.5-3GhZ CPUs and SSDs is not enough to run a current version of an OS even with 4-6 GB of RAM.
I still use a Mac Mini from 2009 as my main computer although I have upgraded the hard drive to a solid state disk and expanded the memory from 2 GB to (maximum) 8 GB. I run Debian on it with the window manager Blackbox. Other World Computing has great upgrade instruction videos for all models.
Of all the complaints you could have about Apple, supporting software updates on legacy devices isn't really one. The iPhone 6s which was released in 2015 will receive this years iOS 15 release. The 2014 Mac mini will support the upcoming macOS release. My Apple devices tend to be usable at least 2-3x as long as similar devices from other manufacturers.
I am on the same path but I don't see it as a problem.
I see it as a realistic mindset and mandatory skills for the future. Peer pressure must be ignored delicately.
Somehow I envision decentralized future in which people will use bootstrapped and FOSS software on small private networks. In my country, before big internet centralization there were small internet providers who offered all kinds of information services. When this time comes, some will be prepared to lead the way. And some will follow, as always.
The problem with 90% of the free, open soure technology is the lack of a decent User Interface. Want to make a change in the way it works? Dig through the config file to find the one setting you need, or query the DB to tweak that one little thing.
The day something like a pi-hole can be installed as easily as a sim card, and can be left alone running without having to interact with it via the terminal will be the day open source software would have gotten mainstream coverage (No, Linux is not mainstream, unless you consider Android)
I would love to start a small business selling pre-configured Pis with an external SSD and the basics of a self-hosted setup (Nextcloud, Bitwarden, Mastodon, hopefully Matrix once Dendrite is production-ready) along with a basic auto-renewable domain subscription. There _might_ be enough people concerned about the security of their nude pictures and the censorship/disinformation practices of FB/Twitter that they'd be willing to pay $150 + $10/year in order to have a turnkey 'your personal, private cloud' product.
Two issues I wouldn't know how to solve are:
(1) backups - not having backups for your personal data would be utterly irresponsible, but adding an E2E encrypted cloud backup to the package would come with substantial recurring costs
(2) public Internet access - from what I understand very few Internet providers will allow you to just run a publicly-accessible webserver from your home router, and for a lot of people it's going to be a bad idea due to having a crap router and horribly unsecured devices on their local LAN. You would have to add a cloud-hosted bastion server, which could be super small and cheap, sure, but it's still a monthly cost and now your 'personal cloud' is reliant on Hetzner or whomever, killing the product's sales pitch
I see your point and I'm not contradicting you, but I do feel that this expectation of comfort is the main hook that locked down technology is using to get us. Once we're used to it we don't easily give it up. But I think it leads to passivity. And once everything is catered to the lowest common denominator, it starts to get in the way of any usage out of the ordinary.
Great work! and keep going, there are more of us out there than you think.
It might feel like you're tilting at windmills most of the time, but each one of us that does this makes it a little easier for the next person who wants to reclaim their privacy and autonomy.
First it's easier in that as more people use a piece of hardware or software, the more you start to see good tutorials and user guides, the more people file bug reports, the more developers contribute, etc.
Second, and possibly even more importantly, each new user reduces what I'd call the "weirdo" factor. Other people are going to be more likely to make the jump to software or hardware that's outside the mainstream if they see others doing it. And the more people there are who use a technology, the less it's seen as "weird". Even a few years ago, most people thought I was some sort of tin hat for using Signal. Today there are enough people using it, that even if it's not the dominant messaging app, most people see it as a reasonable choice.
I was like this for a bit, kinda loosing touch / interest in the latest fancy whatever. I used to get excited about new tvs, phones, whatever I could make an impulse purchase on and satisfy a need for a moment.
Still watch WWDC and other Apple keynotes but meh... I am excited about the new M chips. Had an M1 Macbook Pro until I quit that job and had to turn it in lol. It was hands down amazing / best Apple laptop experience I've had in a long time. Holding out for the next chip revision until I get a new personal one.
What excites me now - I've gotten pretty heavily into 3d printing. Have 2 printers working side by side now (thinking about a 3rd) Started out as just something to print random crap for around the house - under cabinet coffee mug holder, wall hooks, pen holder, etc... Now, I've gotten into (back into) RC cars and robotics - finishing up a motorized Wall-E Replica and an F1 RC car (based on OpenRC). I plan to design my own RC car soon. Have designed some of my own parts and am thinking about getting into production / trying to sell some stuff on Etsy or whatever.
Will it evolve into a career change of some sort? Not sure. But the path I'm going down is similar to how I got into web development; casual at first, then got an entry level job and been doing it for 20 years now. After 20 years, web development is blah. Constantly chasing the next best JS framework; trying to 1up the next candidate looking for the same job to stay relevant. Just getting exhausting.
There's something here between the lines I think I empathize with. That there's been a cultural shift from the tinkerer PC ethos, with decentralized vendors, respect for being "open" (whether open source or standard). This way of thinking seemed to be the default for those of us brought up into computing in the 80s up until the mid 2000s. Even on Microsoft products, the Evil Empire of these times, the amount of customizability and range of hardware and software supported in Windows shows how baked in these assumptions were.
Of course, the average user struggled during these times given the endlessly complexity and configurability of technology. A lot of work with tech required someone speaking technobabble to get everything to work -- Someone like the old SNL sketch "Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25J3u3P-HHg).
Users don't care about the idealism behind the original PC movement, maybe to their detriment. They just want it to work. Those of us getting in the way to espouse ideal of open source this and that just seem to be getting in their way of the thing that "just works" regardless of what MegaCorp they have to turn their personal lives over to.
Take just streaming videos for example - I use some services/devices that I find distasteful to stream content: In particular an Amazon Fire TV Cube.
Over the last few years, it's become basically impossible to use.
The UI stutters and lags horribly (even on the updated version)
The Audio output frequently desyncs with the video. I happen to know restarting the current streaming app fixes the problem, but the UI doesn't allow that - "Users aren't smart enough to manage app lifecycles!". So the next best option is opening the Hulu app - precisely because the app is such bloated garbage that it uses enough device RAM that the other streaming app will be evicted and shut down. Then I can switch back after waiting 100 seconds for Hulu to load. Hurrah!....
There's no way to mark an episode as "played" in the UI - you have to open the fucking thing and fast-forward to the end.
If you happen to have an "unplayed" episode in the season of a show you're watching, it will always play that first. Incredibly annoying given the above point.
More and more of the UI is clearly designed to drive me to specific "shows you'll like!" that I don't like, and see over and over again.
More and more of the UI hides actually scrolling through lists of things I might want to watch, in favor of shoving 8 giant auto-playing images of things I've already marked as "Not interested" in.
It's a fucking Alexa based voice activated device - We control it exclusively through voice and our phones with the remote app. Yet if it doesn't detect the hardware remote, after about 10 seconds of playing it STOPS playing, puts up a giant "We can't find your remote! do you need help syncing it?" screen up literally every time you play something.
----
Basically - My point is that these apps might "just work" in some cases, but frequently they don't work at all, or work so poorly that they might as well not work.
And that's not touching my "idealism" at all. This product is noticeably worse than my self-hosted XBMC/Kodi instance, and at this point we mostly just use that.
Dear Google, I don't want to leave a review of my grocery store, it was cute the first time where I gave a 2/5 and said "not enough juggalos"...it was still kind of cute the second time I was asked to review the same grocery store, this time a 2/5 and "too many juggalos".
But now I'm out of ideas, and I'm still asked to review the same God damn grocery store every couple of weeks.
Whenever an iOS app presents an out-of-the-blue pop-up asking to review it, I always give it one star with a comment explaining that that is my policy. Don't bother me, or, if you want me to do work for you, give me something in return.
I tinker with some of this stuff, but almost never deploy it to production. The author, and others who practice this sort of purism, clearly have the luxury of time to dedicate to the hobby. And that’s great. But I have two kids and a wife who works online (as do I) and I just need shit to work otherwise the house doesn’t run and I don’t ever get to have whole days to myself to fiddle about with Nextcloud or whatever.
I have recently started to run pi-hole as I was appalled my the sheer number of awful in-app ads on my TV and my kids’ tablets. It’s messed a few things up but the trade off seems worth it for me.
I've gone back and forth with this mindset myself, swinging between "privacy all the things!" and "I can't win what's the point". I think I've reached a happy medium where rather than larping as Edward Snowden I'm larping as a privacy-conscious sysadmin. And I've managed to not annoy my wife too much along the way, which is a nice plus. In fact, she gets more annoyed now when she accidentally connects to the non-pi-hole'd guest network and all the ads reappear on her tablet.
Tinkering with free software is not necessarily a hobby. You are actually learning from it a lot about technology. This understanding and skills (fixing problems, debugging, patience, reading docs) can be converted to money.
There is nothing to say that a company must derive their revenues from a single source. It has always been like that, or at least it has been like that for a very long time. Newspapers derive their revenue from both sales to readers and sales of advertising. If you subscribe, they also sell the subscriber data. The same thing can be said of warranty cards. You don't see them as much these days since it turns out to be far more reliable to force people to register their product when they first turn it on, but it was always a way to get marketing (and marketable) data.
I don't see it happening. FOSS either forms companies and plays the same PR game as everyone else, or we'll be stuck in the same aftermarket-nothing-working-correctly feeling OP is getting burnt out on. This is why I think the Fairphone, eSolutions, Librem, the Pine gadgeds matter so much, because they are the step in the right direction: packaging the marketing and an OOTB solution, but built the Right Way.
[+] [-] kelnos|4 years ago|reply
I would love to get Google out of my life, but Google Photos is easily my favorite phone app, and I still get a lot of value out of GDocs, GDrive, etc., and managing a Nextcloud instance sounds like more work than I want to do.
I do feel like I have an antagonistic relationship with technology, and as someone who works in technology, that makes me really sad.
I'm reminded that, in the mid-90s, one of Microsoft's branding slogans was "where do you want to go today?" While that seems funny in retrospect, back then MS's software really did let you do more or less whatever you wanted. These days our platforms are becoming more and more locked down, and meanwhile they're actively leaking our personal information to third parties who are the poorest stewards of it imaginable.
I want to be optimistic for the future of technology, but it's really hard to be.
[+] [-] peakaboo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindslight|4 years ago|reply
No idea specifically about Google Pay though, like if it demands a proprietary device for "security". I personally don't see the appeal of new forms of surveilled payments - the plastic cards in my wallet work just fine for that.
Also I can't say this enough - if you're apprehensive about trying out LOS or LOS+microG, get a second device. It only runs on certain devices anyway, so most likely you'll be buying used for $100-$200. You don't have to take a leap all at once - rather you can try different apps gradually.
(Although at this point I hope Pinephone is gaining on LOS. You might consider focusing your attention there, even though it's much less ready for prime time from what I understand)
[+] [-] lytefm|4 years ago|reply
there are multiple hosted options where you don't have to manage the server - instead, you'll get admin access to your nextcloud, you can add accounts for Family members or freelancers whenever needed and it mostly "just works". When using a Nextcloud client, the only additional step that is needee compared to Dropbox etc is providing the server URL.
[+] [-] GSGBen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FearlessNebula|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedougd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loser777|4 years ago|reply
The one exception is the phone. Phones are a wonder (disaster?) of vertical integration and if you're outside one of the two walled gardens it's like living on another planet. Ride-hailing apps, games, dating-apps, even SMS! can be unsupported or flaky on the analogous open alternatives. After the recent Apple announcement I ordered a Pinephone but I'm not expecting much more than a toy.
Accordingly, you can do most of the above and have it fly under the radar when having guests over, but the moment you whip out the non *droid/iOS phone around friends you've outed yourself.
[+] [-] lloydatkinson|4 years ago|reply
Basic integration of all these solutions often ends up with a less satisfactory solution than a “commercial”/closed source version.
I’m sure some naysayers will come up with platitudes like “no funding makes it more difficult” and “well it’s open source just fix it”.
For the first one, like I said some of the bugs or cumbersome problems are not even difficult to reproduce. Basic pointing and clicking by the devs would find it.
For the second, come on, they can’t just misdirect all their users with “fix it yourself” - we might not know how, might not know the language or framework, or simply might not want to spend the time trying to figure out some tedious workflow involving self hosted Git repos or some poorly documented spaghetti build process. At the end of the day the devs themselves are in the best position to fix.
[+] [-] coldpie|4 years ago|reply
It's worth exploring where the limits of digital asceticism are for yourself, and then scaling it back to a place you find reasonable.
[+] [-] conradfr|4 years ago|reply
I don't want something I bought rendered useless because a connector changed or an app has been discontinued.
[+] [-] psychomugs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yosito|4 years ago|reply
This hasn't been my experience at all. I find my devices often work much better than my peers' devices. Just yesterday, I blew someone's mind by being able to unzip a password protected zip and open a password protected pdf with my phone. They had been sending people documents like this for years and never saw anyone open it with their phone. Open source software is often more powerful than the mainstream alternatives, and the algorithms are easier to control, rather than be controlled by. Yes, it takes a bit of knowhow and work to configure things and get them running smoothly. But even the discipline itself has benefits. My guiding principle in all this is "Program or be programmed".
[+] [-] don-code|4 years ago|reply
My most-used means of file transfer is "e-mailed zip file", and generally this works well - until, of course, someone can't open a zip file on their phone. Which I'd assume is most phone users. The phone doesn't need an unzip utility, because a phone user expects a link to some cloud service (Google Photos, etc.) to achieve the same thing. The content doesn't live on the device; it's just a dumb terminal.
Taken to its extreme, I recently had to downmix several HD videos taken on a phone onto a DVD, and _physically mail it overseas_, because even the cloud option wasn't open to the user.
[+] [-] vorpalhex|4 years ago|reply
For instance, I run a tablet on my kitchen counter with the homeassistant interface. It displays photos when not in use.
My piHole setup (multiple of them for redundancy) can be paused from the homeassistant dashboard.
There's a different dashboard for access to Plex or other web UIs. Everything runs behind a reverse proxy with pretty URLs and authentication is from a single source usually.
The one bit of magic is the vpn for when you're out of the house. So it goes.
[+] [-] marcellus23|4 years ago|reply
Are you saying iOS and Android can’t do those things? Because they definitely can — the reason they never saw anyone do it is probably because most people wouldn’t bother trying.
[+] [-] snarfy|4 years ago|reply
Yes but can you make a phone call? Have you ever tried to make a phone call on your cell phone and it did not work? I have, on multiple occasions. I cannot say the same thing for a land line.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jacknews|4 years ago|reply
I hate the latest wave of smart stuff, as it all seems mostly user-hostile.
But even without the latest internet connected, google/alexa integration etc, the microcontrollers in devices have been abused to inflict terrible UI's on users for a long time now.
We need a 'unix philosophy' for household appliances and gadgets. Do one thing, well. Facilitate composition.
For example, I want to switch some floor fans (PSC motors) to much more efficient BLDC versions. They all seem to come with LED or LCD displays, timers, remotes, etc, some even integrate with alexa ... No Thanks! I just want more-efficient and quieter fans, perhaps with potentiometer, or at least, much finer-grained speed control as an upgrade over the 3 fixed speeds I have now, which is inherently possible due to BLDC controller. Perhaps an SPI interface so I can add my own smarts if I want to.
[+] [-] codingdave|4 years ago|reply
As someone who lives in the country, who does share our back country roads with horses and buggies as well as cars, trucks, and farm equipment... our local community works just fine with many different people making different choices about how much technology they choose to bring into their homes.
I believe thinking about such questions and making your own decisions is an extremely healthy habit, no matter where your final decisions fall.
[+] [-] rektide|4 years ago|reply
Nowadays, most discussion & thoughts about tech are far more ambivalent & concerned than they used to be. What hope & optimism there is often feels shallow & vapid. Doubt & questions & concerns seem well justified & rampant. Few individuals seem like they are a driver seat- it feels like tech is steering it's own ship and the "where do you want to go" idea, the personal computing idea, is way way way way outmoded & most tech is now us, in the hands of far greater powers that shape what tech will be.
I adore Nolan's writing & thoughts, but to cast himself as an outsider & cantankerous & a crank is not how I read the tea-leaves of society today.
There's very little shiny promising & exciting on the horizon. What progressive technology camps there are tend to have their faith in weird cult-like high high high tech AI, Blockchain, Quantum or other deeply beyond mortal reach technologies. Most mainstream tech has had a shadow but that underbelly's visibility has grown greatly & dissatisfaction & untrustability- conservative, fear based minsets- have quite justifiably exploded in adoption. Almost no where is there a practical progressive view of technology as a can-do adaptable system that we all can use to shape & guide ourselves, our lives, our way of communicating, and our way of thinking.
I for one have unbounded optimism, but it's because I think it would be very easy to start doing for ourselves. I think our assessments are quite real, quite good, I think we understand how dastardly so many of the traps we've fell into are, begun to deeply comprehend the dangers of superficial low-agency software systems & "creator" economics. We're getting enormously better at information tech, even though we're still not using it for anything remotely empowering or good. But some day we'll start to, and we'll get better fast at personal computing, once we start to see & realize what progressive, positive computing basis could possibly look like.
[+] [-] desertraven|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mxuribe|4 years ago|reply
* computer makers who focus on either linux or "fix it yourself" audience...like system&6, Pine64, and the newest Framework (laptop empowering DIY...though they sell it with Windows they mention adding formal linux support later)
* also more decentralized communications and networks...like the matrix protocol (and associated distrib. network) along with apps like Element, nheko, fluffychat, etc.), the Briar project, the fediverse (and all its apps and instances like mastodon, pleroma, pixlfed, etc.), and on and on.
* finally, there are more and more headlines related to privacy and controlling one's own devices...which continue to become mainstream. While i'm not expecting to have the big corps change overnight...but capitalism being what it is, at some point these big corps will start to adjust their offerings even if only a little to fill the needs that the layperson consumers are beginning to ask/talk about. Sure, plenty is still fluf - like Apple's supposed marketing around privacy...but that shows that at least Apple and other firms are listening to the signals being eminated that privacy - as only one example - is now a selling feature...i'll defer to the reader if Apple has actuaklly achieved anything here...but the fact that it is a topic that has come up in the mainstream enough for Apple to use it as marketing means that there's something to this...which means that some other big corp or med-sized corp might grab that and run to make services and products that cater to the crowds who favor privacy, control, etc.
...at least that what i'm feeling this morning...fingers crossed that my raspberry pi doesn't stop working because another sdcard has failed. ;-)
[+] [-] igor47|4 years ago|reply
I really appreciate the sense of maybe-I'm-not-totally-alone that your post conveys. Maybe the author would as well? "There are literally dozens of us".
[+] [-] titzer|4 years ago|reply
I've lived without a TV (and without a streaming service) for 10 years. My phone has the bare minimum things on it I need to get by. I turn everything off I can. I've railed about location tracking because I know how it works, but damn it, I am not going to mount an all-out war against all my devices and fill my house with an armory of tech. I don't really want to live like that. I want to live like it was the 1990s, maybe, when a PC was just a thing at my desk and it didn't watch me. I guess. That's not coming back now.
All of reality is now infested with tech watching us. Let that sink in. Cameras, smartphones, surveillance drones, location tracking, even microphones, traffic cameras, facial recognition, smart TVs, smart appliances, cars, everything has got its eyes on us.
I'm just so tired of it. I don't want to fight.
[+] [-] martinmakesgame|4 years ago|reply
This is what I'm planning to personally do. My next phone will probably be only able to make calls and send messages and if I need to use the internet then it will be from the computer. I don't want access to the internet all of the time and I feel my life will be better and filled with more life affirming activities because of it.
At home the router stays off all of the time unless I need to connect. Most of my life is offline anyway. When someone says send me an email and I say I'll write you a letter and deliver it, you'd be surprised what gets done.
I feel that choices about whether to use technology are important and I always ask myself would this improve my life, and most of the time the answer is no. I know my priorities are different to most people but I think I am okay with that. I don't feel like I am missing out on anything and actually gain time, well-being and peace of mind instead.
[+] [-] smackeyacky|4 years ago|reply
At this point, they are just giving people the finger simply for the hell of it. I'll bet debian will run on there and I won't ever buy another mac.
[+] [-] muststopmyths|4 years ago|reply
The machine isn't really usable with the current OSes, being dog slow at everything.
But you do bring up an interesting point. I have had the same issues with Windows on older hardware. Which makes me wonder why hardware with 2.5-3GhZ CPUs and SSDs is not enough to run a current version of an OS even with 4-6 GB of RAM.
[+] [-] augustk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] city41|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anoncow|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basisword|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbzso|4 years ago|reply
Somehow I envision decentralized future in which people will use bootstrapped and FOSS software on small private networks. In my country, before big internet centralization there were small internet providers who offered all kinds of information services. When this time comes, some will be prepared to lead the way. And some will follow, as always.
[+] [-] mynameismon|4 years ago|reply
The day something like a pi-hole can be installed as easily as a sim card, and can be left alone running without having to interact with it via the terminal will be the day open source software would have gotten mainstream coverage (No, Linux is not mainstream, unless you consider Android)
[+] [-] piaste|4 years ago|reply
Two issues I wouldn't know how to solve are:
(1) backups - not having backups for your personal data would be utterly irresponsible, but adding an E2E encrypted cloud backup to the package would come with substantial recurring costs
(2) public Internet access - from what I understand very few Internet providers will allow you to just run a publicly-accessible webserver from your home router, and for a lot of people it's going to be a bad idea due to having a crap router and horribly unsecured devices on their local LAN. You would have to add a cloud-hosted bastion server, which could be super small and cheap, sure, but it's still a monthly cost and now your 'personal cloud' is reliant on Hetzner or whomever, killing the product's sales pitch
[+] [-] nurbl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tharne|4 years ago|reply
It might feel like you're tilting at windmills most of the time, but each one of us that does this makes it a little easier for the next person who wants to reclaim their privacy and autonomy.
First it's easier in that as more people use a piece of hardware or software, the more you start to see good tutorials and user guides, the more people file bug reports, the more developers contribute, etc.
Second, and possibly even more importantly, each new user reduces what I'd call the "weirdo" factor. Other people are going to be more likely to make the jump to software or hardware that's outside the mainstream if they see others doing it. And the more people there are who use a technology, the less it's seen as "weird". Even a few years ago, most people thought I was some sort of tin hat for using Signal. Today there are enough people using it, that even if it's not the dominant messaging app, most people see it as a reasonable choice.
[+] [-] lsiunsuex|4 years ago|reply
Still watch WWDC and other Apple keynotes but meh... I am excited about the new M chips. Had an M1 Macbook Pro until I quit that job and had to turn it in lol. It was hands down amazing / best Apple laptop experience I've had in a long time. Holding out for the next chip revision until I get a new personal one.
What excites me now - I've gotten pretty heavily into 3d printing. Have 2 printers working side by side now (thinking about a 3rd) Started out as just something to print random crap for around the house - under cabinet coffee mug holder, wall hooks, pen holder, etc... Now, I've gotten into (back into) RC cars and robotics - finishing up a motorized Wall-E Replica and an F1 RC car (based on OpenRC). I plan to design my own RC car soon. Have designed some of my own parts and am thinking about getting into production / trying to sell some stuff on Etsy or whatever.
Will it evolve into a career change of some sort? Not sure. But the path I'm going down is similar to how I got into web development; casual at first, then got an entry level job and been doing it for 20 years now. After 20 years, web development is blah. Constantly chasing the next best JS framework; trying to 1up the next candidate looking for the same job to stay relevant. Just getting exhausting.
[+] [-] softwaredoug|4 years ago|reply
Of course, the average user struggled during these times given the endlessly complexity and configurability of technology. A lot of work with tech required someone speaking technobabble to get everything to work -- Someone like the old SNL sketch "Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25J3u3P-HHg).
Users don't care about the idealism behind the original PC movement, maybe to their detriment. They just want it to work. Those of us getting in the way to espouse ideal of open source this and that just seem to be getting in their way of the thing that "just works" regardless of what MegaCorp they have to turn their personal lives over to.
[+] [-] horsawlarway|4 years ago|reply
Take just streaming videos for example - I use some services/devices that I find distasteful to stream content: In particular an Amazon Fire TV Cube.
Over the last few years, it's become basically impossible to use.
The UI stutters and lags horribly (even on the updated version)
The Audio output frequently desyncs with the video. I happen to know restarting the current streaming app fixes the problem, but the UI doesn't allow that - "Users aren't smart enough to manage app lifecycles!". So the next best option is opening the Hulu app - precisely because the app is such bloated garbage that it uses enough device RAM that the other streaming app will be evicted and shut down. Then I can switch back after waiting 100 seconds for Hulu to load. Hurrah!....
There's no way to mark an episode as "played" in the UI - you have to open the fucking thing and fast-forward to the end.
If you happen to have an "unplayed" episode in the season of a show you're watching, it will always play that first. Incredibly annoying given the above point.
More and more of the UI is clearly designed to drive me to specific "shows you'll like!" that I don't like, and see over and over again.
More and more of the UI hides actually scrolling through lists of things I might want to watch, in favor of shoving 8 giant auto-playing images of things I've already marked as "Not interested" in.
It's a fucking Alexa based voice activated device - We control it exclusively through voice and our phones with the remote app. Yet if it doesn't detect the hardware remote, after about 10 seconds of playing it STOPS playing, puts up a giant "We can't find your remote! do you need help syncing it?" screen up literally every time you play something.
----
Basically - My point is that these apps might "just work" in some cases, but frequently they don't work at all, or work so poorly that they might as well not work.
And that's not touching my "idealism" at all. This product is noticeably worse than my self-hosted XBMC/Kodi instance, and at this point we mostly just use that.
[+] [-] pope_meat|4 years ago|reply
But now I'm out of ideas, and I'm still asked to review the same God damn grocery store every couple of weeks.
2/5 "too many push notifications"
[+] [-] burntoutfire|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] someperson|4 years ago|reply
I would definitely like to flash the firmware on a Smart TV, and would happily pay a subscription for high-quality privacy focused software.
[+] [-] outofmyshed|4 years ago|reply
I have recently started to run pi-hole as I was appalled my the sheer number of awful in-app ads on my TV and my kids’ tablets. It’s messed a few things up but the trade off seems worth it for me.
[+] [-] thedanbob|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] john61|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pif|4 years ago|reply
Software like that will be easy to find when people will be ready to pay.
[+] [-] II2II|4 years ago|reply
There is nothing to say that a company must derive their revenues from a single source. It has always been like that, or at least it has been like that for a very long time. Newspapers derive their revenue from both sales to readers and sales of advertising. If you subscribe, they also sell the subscriber data. The same thing can be said of warranty cards. You don't see them as much these days since it turns out to be far more reliable to force people to register their product when they first turn it on, but it was always a way to get marketing (and marketable) data.
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply