[MontyCarloHall]

>I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products.

I noticed your own app's website [0] hosts videos on YouTube [1] and uses Stripe as a payment processor [2], which is hosted on AWS. You also mentioned that your app is vibe coded [3]; the AI labs that facilitated your vibecoding likely built and run their models using Meta's PyTorch or Google's TensorFlow.

"Just stop using" makes for a catchy manifesto in HackerNews comments, but the reality is a lot more complicated than that.

[0] https://wordsunite.us/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCM99cz9W8

[2] https://wordsunite.us/terms

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45644698

[oceansky]

Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account.

Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment

[devsda]

I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware.

Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change the status quo within the country or overseas.

[shevy-java]

While that may be true, people need to start somewhere. Otherwise the future will just be even more sniffing done by private entities. Do we want a sneaky Skynet that looks more like 1984?

[bad_haircut72]

Everything counts, this attitude is very defeatist. Stop using it the easy ways at first, and then make conscious steps to get off these services going forward.

[trinsic2]

Yea I noticed many of these sevices won't allow an email address not hosted with a provider that wasn't Google,Microsoft, or apple where they can collect other details. I think i tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in.

[prmoustache]

> [...] and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account.

How so?

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Oh well, I guess there is nothing to be done. Pack it up everyone. It is over. You can't do anything. No one can learn anything. No. You heard the guy above. It is over. Go home. Do nothing.

[Schiendelman]

Apple isn't on the evil list, aside from the kowtowing every powerful leader must do not to have their business attacked.

[jbstack]

It doesn't have to be a binary choice between "don't use it ever" and "continue using it as much as you are now". If people stopped using these services 50% of the time, it would have a huge impact.

[random2021]

In concept what you say is correct but reality is complex. There are very few providers that implement friction free login/password and importantly security. A large number of email providers didn't implement 2FA until very recently. Even those that have terrible apps, ad infested, no app password or oAuth etc. so many governments use MS hosted services.

It is akin to Visa/MasterCard duopoly. It is hard to escape but even if one does it then it resulted only inconvenience. I still don't have my cards in phone - neither will google change path nor will govts force a change.

[nxpnsv]

But you can still reduce your exposure. Giving in to hopelessness seems suboptimal.

[wordsunite]

The comments are fair. My post was quick and lacked details as I was frustrated in the ever increasing enshitification of the web.

What I meant to convey, from my personal experience, is that it seemed hard to get off of platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Prime, Alexa, Ring, Google Photos, etc. but then I did it and didn’t miss them. These small moves by a lot of people, I believe, can still make a difference. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Do I still use some services? Of course, I have Gmail and WhatsApp, and use a lot of Apple products. When I can, I choose intentionally what I use since there’s no perfect companies out there, but there are “better” ones (whatever that may be in one’s opinion). I chose cloudflare for hosting and Anthropic for vibe coding. Allowing people to use existing login info versus exposing them to more risk with self managed auth was a choice I made. There are tons of choices we make every day so trying to be more intentional is a good start.

Nobody is perfect, but we can try to improve each day in these choices we make.

[iririririr]

Talking about anti-tech-monopolies and using Stripe-paypal is extra ironic.

I can understand aws, youtube, being on google index, and other things as they sometimes are the most cost efficient or vendors don't offer alternatives... but stripe-paypal is more expensive and worse than the less-bad alternatives. jeez.

[ironsmoke]

Perfect is the enemy of good.

[miyuru]

his app has also Google, Apple logins and for first time I have seen, login with meta button.

https://app.wordsunite.us/

[Gormo]

I don't think using AWS has quite the same privacy implications to using Amazon's own SaaS services.

[m3kw9]

It’s hard that’s why he is still using it