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Libb

@ Libb @piefed.social

Posts
3
Comments
610
Joined
1 yr. ago

A 50-something French dude that's old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. I also like to write and to sketch.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • You know, the only reason these companies have so much power over your government and so much of your money is they’ve tricked you that you’re missing out without them. 💁‍♂️

    I don't know if you're speaking to me specifically here but I would like to point out an issue I see in your comment (as well as in a few others, yours being an excellent demonstration) that I think is at least as important as that supposed gullibility you seem to think is mine/ours in regard to big tech. I'm talking about this habit too many of us share in thinking and maybe I should say 'in believing' which seems more appropriate to this type of behavior, that we know (what's going on, what to do) better than the others around us, while those others are being wrong and they are doing it wrong.

    That 'you' (are wrong) you insist so much on, vs an implied 'me' (I know what I do), doesn't help much pleading your argument. I thought you might to know that.

    Also, note that you have no idea at all regarding my stance in regards to those big tech, nor how I chose to spend my money—like I have zero idea regarding the you do it, but I don't suppose anything either.

    Finally, the reasons you listed are correct, at least partly are (sure, our willingness to use them is an important factor), but they're also far from being the 'the only reasons' things are the way they are in regards to US big tech, and why they have gained so much power. It would too long to list but allow me to share some quick hints:

    • DMCA and all its many variations is making sure that no other country will ever be able to... 'reverse engineer' US tech (no matter if US tech itself does it since its very inception), giving them a serious edge no matter what potentially better (and non-US) product could come out of liberating apps and services from that anti-copying mechanism. (that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours, if most countries around the world have bowed in front of that absurd systems, and you can be assured that none of them has done it on their own free will... US economical power of coercion is as real and probably even more efficient as its armed forces (ask Iran and Venezuela, while we wait to see who's next to get a taste of US freedom)
    • It is not by sheer willingness to give away free money that US lobbyists do spend billions trying to force things to go the direction they want them to go, in the USA and around the world too. (what the US lobbyist chose to spend its fortune on that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours, not anymore than people being receptive to corruption or being unable to realize what is at stake is not our fault, right?)
    • That is also not a coincidence if the latest US administration is plaguing the EU with tariffs (and with insults, and now with threats). It wants the EU to cave in and, among a few other things (like, say, our money), they want the EU to get rid of all those 'mean' rules we created to rein-in their precious 'US big tech' while protecting the data of our citizens. (seeing how clueless and coward most our EU leaders are, I have little doubt the EU will cave-in but that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours)

    We could go on discussing the many other 'reasons' that make things the way they are but I think it's enough, at least I hope so, to show you we can and should focus on much more than blaming our own lazy asses, that is if we want for things to really change, and that we could and should do it without trying to put our own little precious person on a pedestal while telling the rest of the world they're all being stupid morons.

    My 2 cents.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • How do you switch mode on my blog? I mean, it's static and, to the best of my limited understanding, I've removed anything in the theme that remotely looked like a script... so I'm surprised you can toggle its theme. Is there a toggle I've missed somewhere? (Also, maybe we could discuss that through MP to avoid making useless noise in the thread ;))

  • What light-hearted communities do you enjoy here on Lemmy?

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  • More than happy to oblige, feel free to share your own if you have any :)

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • Yes, I tried self-hosting too. Too much frustration for me. Heck even with my own domain that is hosted by a tiny but legit host, can sometimes have issue with emails not reaching their destination.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • Thx for the link, I will check that and see if my own tiny, silly blog can fit anywhere with them.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • Of course, that last bit is changing (which is part of why you’re asking the question, no doubt).

    maybe? :)

    And that’s the answer to your question. If those services go away, they will be replaced by something else.

    I would be tempted to agree (while also recognizing a minority (like myself) would try to steer away from anything remotely looking like a clone of those 'original models' and rekindle the interest for a smaller more fragmented Web) but, at the same time, suffice to see how that less-democratic USA we now have to live with is dealing with anything that even remotely looks like a threat: invading a country, taxing it do death (unless they withdraw any law deemed unfair for US businesses),... I doubt those USA would allow any serious alternative to grow and to reach a large enough audience... But then, in my first hypothesis and for some mysterious reason we would already have lost access to US tech/services, and therefore one may conclude that at the same time USA would have lost access to us as a potential market and wouldn't have any leverage against our own attempts, well, maybe? ;)

    but nothing lasts forever.

    Not even empires, or wannabe new empires. But isn't it what history is all about: failed dreams of grandeur?

    edit: typos.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • It's one of the thing I would like to know: how many of us have had a taste of the old web and how many of the younger people have no idea anon corporate(US)-owned Web was even a thing.

    Like I said in my answer, 'my' Web wouldn't change much either: blogs and emails wouldn't go away, just less blog/emails to and from the US, probably ;)

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • Kagi (of which I was a happy paid customer) is US so it wouldn't fit into that scenario

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • For me the web is mostly the place I read blogs. I read a lot of US-based ones that are maintained by smart people. I would miss those, but the rest of the world is certainly not lacking real smart people. If they were to remove access, the US would be the real loser imho.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • So… Just like I already do today?

    Maybe? That's the whole point of my question (and why I also briefly shared my own usage in a comment): getting an overview of what it would change, if anything.

    I suppose you didn’t mean litterally just those, but many American companies.

    Indeed, I just listed the most obvious. Maybe it was also a way to trigger reactions?

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • :)

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • Good point. I would say we should consider Wikipedia as big-tech not "corporate owned" and since it's also open source we should be able imagine it would not be tied to being US.

  • In a place without access to US apps and online services, how would you use the Internet?

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  • I would use that corporate-free Web for email, like we used to in the 90s) and for the Fediverse (the little of it I’m using). I would use it to read… blogs, and to post more regularly on my own blog too.

    I don’t use social media much (beside here) and would not miss not accessing Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter or whatever else. I have not used Google for search for quite a few years now, so that would not change much for me.

    I would probably miss YT, though. I would try find alternatives to it and... to the majority of US content I’m subscribed to on YT.

    I’m not much of a gamer and would not miss much there. I do play chess, mostly IRL and against people not machine, but I would probably still play from time to time online chess on Lichess (not US and not corporate owned, no tracking, no ads, free and open source).

    I’ve quit using streaming services a few years ago, moving back to owning physical copies of the media I watch or listen to, and read.

    Since, I use Free/Libre Software there is also no real dependency on any country of origin for them. Also, all those apps all work fully offline too. No need to even connect to the Internet to use them.

  • What light-hearted communities do you enjoy here on Lemmy?

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  • My pleasure :)

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

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  • CS Lewis, 'The Abolition of Man'.

    Well maybe not for kids themselves to read but, since its all bout teaching kids, a required read for all of us the ‘adults’. For anyone one wanting to 'have' children, for any one pretending to teach them anything, for anyone pretending to vote laws concerning the education of those children. Well, for all of us adults. Allow me to explain.

    It's a short book (a collection of a few conferences he gave to British bomber pilots, sometime in 1943) in which he reflects on the consequences of all the reforms and wishful thinking that was already going on in the educative system of back then, and how the moral relativism that was being promoted (one should read the book to understand how he defines it) was threatening to destroy... our humanity, our ability to feel and to stand for some ideas, as well as our… individuality/ies. One should keep in mind Lewis was talking ‘the danger of moral relativism’ to young men (fresh out of school, barely older than kids) that were about to go die en masse while bombing (and killing en masse) Nazi Germany.

    Lewis reflects on how this moral relativism is turning kids (and therefore all of us) into mere sheep in the hands of a few powerful people that will know how to manipulate those ‘relativist’ values in their own exclusive interest, not in the kid's best interest, and that includes convincing those kids to do the most stupid and (self-)destructive shit. Any semblance with our days and age may not be a coincidence.

    This book could and should still be read today as an almost perfect description of how our respective educative systems, at least here in the West, are failing everywhere at teaching kids anything of value. Not just any useful practical knowledge but more importantly any… compass, any firm ground. Lewis talks of this system creating ‘men without chess’ (once gain he says that to young people that are about to go kill and die in a war).

    He says that not only that they are failing at teaching kids but he reflects (rightfully so, imho) that it may even become their very purpose to fail at teaching kids anything (and making sure they can't learn much anywhere else, I would add).

    CS Lewis is probably most well know for being the author of the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’. More than a movie adaptation it’s a series of books that is also worth reading, this time by kids too ;)

    Also, knowing a lot of people around here are hostile to that, I prefer mention Lewis was a Christian thinker. But, by any mean, don’t let that stop you from opening his book.

    As an atheist myself, I think it is one book that we should all read closely and then (calmly) discuss it. Like I said, maybe kids themselves should not be reading it (don’t think many of them would get much out of it but some undoubtedly would and, with any luck, they would trigger the alarm and help other kids around them realize how badly they’re being screwed in the name of wishful thinking), but definitely all parents should read it and, in a perfect world, all teachers too and all our representatives. The ones that are responsible for this mess. The ones that are asking for always more reforms in our educative systems, the ones that are voting them and, doing so, the ones that are destroying any hope to raise children decently, and failing to give them any chance to stand on/for something. While allowing a few powerful people use that failure as an opportunity to treat those kids as mere sheep.

    Not a bad book. By not a stupid man.

  • What is it about technology that fascinates you?

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  • The pencil. Seriously, what piece of tech has had such an impact as this ~450 years old lump of graphite sandwiched between two pieces of wood? (edit: grossly simplifying it's evolution, I know)

    So impressively efficient it is still widely used today and, imho, in many cases still unrivaled too. Heck, even Apple with all its billions could only try to copy the cheap & humble pencil with their expensive high-tech 'Apple Pencil'—they did not manage to put an eraser on their model, though ;)

  • What light-hearted communities do you enjoy here on Lemmy?

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  • There are a few others, but these ones would be my go to 'the world is not the most important thing happening right now. They're not all 'amusing' but they're all great to get get a better taste in the mouth (and in the soul).

    Those communities don't post too much so it doesn't bother me to stay subscribed to all of them (plus a few more) since my feed never feels saturated. Even less that my feed only shows 'subscribed'.

  • Ignoring the internet bill itself, how many paid online services do you have?

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  • Is it just not worth the price?

    I am curious why?

    Yes, it's worth its price (IA may quickly change that by rendering search engines less... central, one day) it's the best search engine I can think of. So, why giving up on it? Easy: I'd rather spend my money on non-US tech companies, at least for the time being:

  • Ignoring the internet bill itself, how many paid online services do you have?

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  • I like your answer ;)

  • Ignoring the internet bill itself, how many paid online services do you have?

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    • End to end encrypted cloud (for sharing private stuff), European.
    • Not E2EE cloud, for public sharing and for general purpose email. European.
    • Encrypted email. European.
    • When I need to use one, a VPN. European.
    • Web hosting. European.
    • Password manager, not European (but I'm slowly switching).

    I used to also pay for Kagi (best search engine I've used) but I gave up on it... at least for now.

    I'm subscribed to a few print newspapers and magazines, those also give me access to their digital versions at no extra cost but since I never read them online (there is not tracking when reading print, and I prefer it that way), I don't count those as online subscriptions.