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The author's major complaint is that they can't have their cake and eat it too. You can easily live without tech giants! Stop using a smart phone, use a Linux

The author's major complaint is that they can't have their cake and eat it too. You can easily live without tech giants! Stop using a smart phone, use a Linux PC/Laptop, pay for your few online services like e-mail, stop using the internet for shopping and everything else. You know, the way the entire world worked 15 years ago. > Yes, there are alternatives for products and services offered by the tech giants, but they are harder to find and to use. If life is somewhat difficult without giant tech corporations, this is inherently unacceptable? No - this is called living in the real world. You do very often have to choose between an immoral yet easy life, and a moral yet difficult life. This has been our constant choice for literally millennia. Every society has had to grapple with it. Entire religions are based on it. It is the completely unavoidable part of life that everyone is forced to participate in. > If I were still blocking the tech giants today, I wouldn’t have been able to watch this week’s antitrust hearing online. C-SPAN streamed it live via YouTube, which Google owns. So get a TV! I don't know if you know this, but C-SPAN is a TV channel! You can watch it without the internet! You can even make comments on it without the internet by calling a live show and speaking your mind! Amazing! (But, probably don't do this, as the average caller seems to have about the same political insight as the average YouTube commenter) This whole premise - that life is impossible without tech giants - concedes that life is impossible without the internet. I assure you that it is not. It's up to you to decide whether that convenience and lack of expense is preferable to the alternative, which is doing things "old school".

decasteve 6y ago
> use a Linux PC/Laptop When you install Linux, where is the OS downloaded from? Where do the software packages and updates reside? What about the source code? If you blocked Microsoft (Azure + github), Google, Amazon (AWS), and Akamai, I'd be surprised if you could run any mainstream flavour of Linux. Some *BSDs might work. I minimize my interaction with the big computing-advertising-consumer entities but I know they're still there behind the scenes. It's all part of the same cesspool.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- znpy 6y ago
  You can get enough software to live your life from the Debian repositories (sources too). The same is true for fedora and other distros of course. Many mirrors are hosted at ISPs and universities.
  - decasteve 6y ago
    I remember getting sources from university ftp mirrors for Linux (still do for OpenBSD). I wouldn't be surprised if some of these repositories are now hosted by the 'giants'.
    - znpy 6y ago
      You're mistaking repository with mirrors. If Facebook is mirroring the Debian package repository you can still apt-get binary/source packages off another mirror.
- peterwwillis 6y ago
  > When you install Linux, where is the OS downloaded from? Where do the software packages and updates reside? About 1000 mirrors distributed around the world by independent institutions using donated storage and bandwidth. Some distros may have "corporate-funded" primary mirrors on providers like AWS, but independent mirrors of those still pop up. The majority of the mirrors are universities and ISPs. > What about the source code? Most distros have "source mirrors", as most package managers will build a "source package" which includes the source code used to build the package, in addition to vendor patches and build instructions. If they don't provide a source mirror, you go to wherever the dev kept their source, which used to default to either SourceForge or a personal website, and is now mostly GitHub. By default most distros have a list of mirrors that they try, and they also allow you to specify a specific list of mirrors if the defaults don't work. If your country shuts off internet access to the rest of the world, and there's no mirror in your country, someone can stand up a mirror at a local business and you can use that. And you can install Linux distros from a DVD, CD, floppy disk, USB stick, and local LAN. Even if you only have one copy of the install media for one release of one distro, you can make a mirror out of it.
switch11 6y ago
agreed with all your points the author of the article is basically writing - I'm too lazy to use alternatives she is cementing her laziness by taking THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE She wrote a few years ago and recycling it

decasteve 6y ago

> use a Linux PC/Laptop When you install Linux, where is the OS downloaded from? Where do the software packages and updates reside? What about the source code? If you blocked Microsoft (Azure + github), Google, Amazon (AWS), and Akamai, I'd be surprised if you could run any mainstream flavour of Linux. Some *BSDs might work. I minimize my interaction with the big computing-advertising-consumer entities but I know they're still there behind the scenes. It's all part of the same cesspool.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
znpy 6y ago
You can get enough software to live your life from the Debian repositories (sources too). The same is true for fedora and other distros of course. Many mirrors are hosted at ISPs and universities.
- decasteve 6y ago
  I remember getting sources from university ftp mirrors for Linux (still do for OpenBSD). I wouldn't be surprised if some of these repositories are now hosted by the 'giants'.
  - znpy 6y ago
    You're mistaking repository with mirrors. If Facebook is mirroring the Debian package repository you can still apt-get binary/source packages off another mirror.
peterwwillis 6y ago
> When you install Linux, where is the OS downloaded from? Where do the software packages and updates reside? About 1000 mirrors distributed around the world by independent institutions using donated storage and bandwidth. Some distros may have "corporate-funded" primary mirrors on providers like AWS, but independent mirrors of those still pop up. The majority of the mirrors are universities and ISPs. > What about the source code? Most distros have "source mirrors", as most package managers will build a "source package" which includes the source code used to build the package, in addition to vendor patches and build instructions. If they don't provide a source mirror, you go to wherever the dev kept their source, which used to default to either SourceForge or a personal website, and is now mostly GitHub. By default most distros have a list of mirrors that they try, and they also allow you to specify a specific list of mirrors if the defaults don't work. If your country shuts off internet access to the rest of the world, and there's no mirror in your country, someone can stand up a mirror at a local business and you can use that. And you can install Linux distros from a DVD, CD, floppy disk, USB stick, and local LAN. Even if you only have one copy of the install media for one release of one distro, you can make a mirror out of it.

switch11 6y ago

agreed with all your points the author of the article is basically writing - I'm too lazy to use alternatives she is cementing her laziness by taking THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE She wrote a few years ago and recycling it