I think the very first step to building resiliency is to sign up for Proton's cloud services. That will give you access to mail, both from Gmail via forwarding and a new inbox with a separate address. You'd also get a password manager and cloud storage. From there you can start self-hosting alternatives. Probably start with Immich as Google Photos is a big deal and it takes a ton of storage. Proton is a Swiss non-profit so the probability for enshitification is not nearly as high as with Google.
As soon as you have redundant storage, do a Google Takeout and download a full archive of your stuff. This feature may not be there for long given the current corporate climate.
I don't think they'd abandon their program if Trump kicks the bucket. This is bigger than him. If the right loses power during this mandate, they may not regain it for a long time and they may not be able to criminalize the left to the point of preventing an FDR 2.0 being elected in the near future.
Bluesky pioneered a brilliant solution to this “empty feed problem” in 2024, with the introduction of “Starter Packs”, a feature that allows users to curate and share their own collections of recommended accounts.
Bluesky pioneered, eh? I distinctly remember using a feature called "circles" on Google+ back in 2011. It allowed people to create arbitrary "circles" of people, share them and have others bulk-follow/unfollow the people from a circle. It worked incredibly well and Google+ became a lively social network even with its small userbase at the time.
So this could get much more serious if they start clamping down on the comm tools we take for granted. Between this and the incoming sideloading block - all of a sudden the most paranoid fears of Stallman's don't seem nearly as far fetched.
Oh so The Antichrist is regulation. Now it all makes sense. In a world where tech regulation is so obviously needed, he's got to employ mythical themes of good vs evil to get people to believe the opposite.
