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Yes, personal responsibility and the free market have done so well on this subject, how dare we try something else?? /s Seriously, the free market and persona

Yes, personal responsibility and the free market have done so well on this subject, how dare we try something else?? /s Seriously, the free market and personal responsibility have not worked. Let’s try something else. At this point, I’ll take some potential negative externalities over this shitshow.

rglullis 5y ago
It worked pretty well for me and anyone else that is willing to understand "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Wherever I get to maintain a proper "digital hygiene"*, I don't have any of these issues that people love to complain about. But I would bet that whatever regulation gets to be approved, it would not only be ineffective to solve the issues that affect the majority, it would make it harder for the minority that still manages to get away from them. * a simple set of rules to live by. - prefer free-software solutions for all use cases that satisfies your hard requirements, even if they miss on the "nice-to-haves". - self-host as much as possible: see all services you are paying currently and look for existing open self-hosted alternatives. Get an old computer or laptop and run these. Invite your friends and family. If you are not technical, find someone in your close circle that is and ask if they are interested in doing it, offer to help with the costs. - If you don't want to self-host, find service providers that offer these open source services. - use Brave: complain about crypto all you want, it is the only web browser that gives control to the user and that promotes a business model where creators are rewarded directly by the consumers. - use the received BAT to be as generous as possible with open source developers. 5 bucks a month might not mean much, but if 10% of internet users did that I guarantee we would kill all the app stores and their abusive practices. - Do not rely on streaming services. I'd rather pay for a private tracker to download what I want than finance Disney/Comcast/HBO/Amazon/Apple to increase their cultural dominance even further - use alternative frontends whenever you have to access youtube, twitter, medium.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  so now you’re creating a bunch of extra work for yourself so you can host a bunch of content that most people won’t see telling a bunch of software engineers to do things themselves is never going to solve the problem, it’s like telling the pope to go to church the problem is everything else happening to the average people in the world around you - you’re subject to it whether you like it or not. As long as you live in a society problems that facebook twitter and other social media platforms you dont use are causing are going to be your problems too, no matter how deep you bury your head in niche web browsers and self-hosted blogging platforms.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > everything else happening to the average people in the world around you Did you read the part where I said "invite your friends and family", or you just jumped to write such a thoughtful response? My parents don't care about Facebook, Twitter or whatsapp. They care about being able to see and talk with their grandkids. If I tell them that they can do that by using a different app, they will install the app without second thought. If they want to continue using Facebook/Google, they can. But the important thing to me is that now they are less dependent on Facebook and they have an option.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      what i’m saying is that you’re ignoring societal problems by removing yourself from them, and this will not fix anything… and you will still be subject to side-effects as long as you wish to interact with people outside of your parents (ie, society) I’ve been on my local school board for 20 years and the changes happening due to social media are staggering (for children and adults). My lack of participation hasn’t changed anything. Telling people not to participate will not work because you’re rivaling companies that pay experts tons of money to get people addicted to these things. As individuals we’re massively out-gunned. I’ve started working with and donating to advocacy groups looking to regulate these companies because I haven’t seen anything else even begin to work.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        I'd rather say that I am weakening the grip that some corporations have over society at large, and that the more people did the same, the less of a problem it would be. I am also saying that there are a good number of people that think this is not a problem, so I don't want to waste my time and energy trying to convince them otherwise.
        micromacrofoot 5y ago
        Understandable, my perspective is that most people simply don’t realize how much of a problem it is, because there are massive amounts of money and expertise keeping them from it.

rglullis 5y ago

It worked pretty well for me and anyone else that is willing to understand "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Wherever I get to maintain a proper "digital hygiene"*, I don't have any of these issues that people love to complain about. But I would bet that whatever regulation gets to be approved, it would not only be ineffective to solve the issues that affect the majority, it would make it harder for the minority that still manages to get away from them. * a simple set of rules to live by. - prefer free-software solutions for all use cases that satisfies your hard requirements, even if they miss on the "nice-to-haves". - self-host as much as possible: see all services you are paying currently and look for existing open self-hosted alternatives. Get an old computer or laptop and run these. Invite your friends and family. If you are not technical, find someone in your close circle that is and ask if they are interested in doing it, offer to help with the costs. - If you don't want to self-host, find service providers that offer these open source services. - use Brave: complain about crypto all you want, it is the only web browser that gives control to the user and that promotes a business model where creators are rewarded directly by the consumers. - use the received BAT to be as generous as possible with open source developers. 5 bucks a month might not mean much, but if 10% of internet users did that I guarantee we would kill all the app stores and their abusive practices. - Do not rely on streaming services. I'd rather pay for a private tracker to download what I want than finance Disney/Comcast/HBO/Amazon/Apple to increase their cultural dominance even further - use alternative frontends whenever you have to access youtube, twitter, medium.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
so now you’re creating a bunch of extra work for yourself so you can host a bunch of content that most people won’t see telling a bunch of software engineers to do things themselves is never going to solve the problem, it’s like telling the pope to go to church the problem is everything else happening to the average people in the world around you - you’re subject to it whether you like it or not. As long as you live in a society problems that facebook twitter and other social media platforms you dont use are causing are going to be your problems too, no matter how deep you bury your head in niche web browsers and self-hosted blogging platforms.
- rglullis 5y ago
  > everything else happening to the average people in the world around you Did you read the part where I said "invite your friends and family", or you just jumped to write such a thoughtful response? My parents don't care about Facebook, Twitter or whatsapp. They care about being able to see and talk with their grandkids. If I tell them that they can do that by using a different app, they will install the app without second thought. If they want to continue using Facebook/Google, they can. But the important thing to me is that now they are less dependent on Facebook and they have an option.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    what i’m saying is that you’re ignoring societal problems by removing yourself from them, and this will not fix anything… and you will still be subject to side-effects as long as you wish to interact with people outside of your parents (ie, society) I’ve been on my local school board for 20 years and the changes happening due to social media are staggering (for children and adults). My lack of participation hasn’t changed anything. Telling people not to participate will not work because you’re rivaling companies that pay experts tons of money to get people addicted to these things. As individuals we’re massively out-gunned. I’ve started working with and donating to advocacy groups looking to regulate these companies because I haven’t seen anything else even begin to work.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      I'd rather say that I am weakening the grip that some corporations have over society at large, and that the more people did the same, the less of a problem it would be. I am also saying that there are a good number of people that think this is not a problem, so I don't want to waste my time and energy trying to convince them otherwise.
      - micromacrofoot 5y ago
        Understandable, my perspective is that most people simply don’t realize how much of a problem it is, because there are massive amounts of money and expertise keeping them from it.