[aljgz]

You gave up some convenience to avoid voting for a bad practice with your wallet. I admire this, try to consistently do this when reasonably feasible.

Problem is, most people don't do this, choosing convenience at any given moment without thinking about longer-term impact. This hurts us collectively by letting governments/companies, etc tighten their grip over time. This comes from my lived experience.

[gloomyday]

Society is lacking people that stand up for something. My efforts to consume less is seen as being cheap by my family, which I find so sad. I much prefer donating my money than exchanging superfluous gifts on Christmas.

[pluralmonad]

As I get older I more and more view convenience as the enemy of good. Luckily (or unluckily for some) a lot of the tradeoffs we are asked to make in the name of convenience are increasingly absurd. I have an easier and easier time going without these Faustian bargains.

[aljgz]

IMHO The question is: who is in control? The user, or the profit-seeking company/control-seeking government? There is nothing we can do to prevent companies from seeking profit. What we can do is to prefer tools that we control, if that choice is not available, then tools that we can abandon when we want, over tools that remove our control AND abandoning them would be prohibitively difficult.