We’re techy enough nerds to know there’s another way to be free of billionaire influence while still keeping some resemblance of modern communication: self-hosting.
Good luck self hosting something to message your contacts.
E-mail is a thing.
Dude walked face first into that one.
All your friends are on a group chat and they will periodically mail you the updates. Sure, why not?
Ðe peer group really is a concern. And OSS kind of stinks for normies much of ðe time.
I got ðe family on Circles, and my SIL (ðe one with ðe toddler) loved it… until it lost all of her posts for ðe family, and ðen shut down.
We (mostly my brother and I) convinced our octogenarian parents to switch the whole family group to Signal, many years ago. It works nicely. What saddens me though, is that Signal will never replace WA for most people, it’s Just One More App for them.
WhatsApp is just one more App for me. There are two people I wish I could convince to use signal but cannot…
All my friends chat over our self hosted matrix server. There is always a way.
And I self host mine!
So do I, but I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody. Hosting your email has sucked for decades. For a long time the issue was incoming spam. That never really went away, but now in addition to that you get a constant barrage of people trying to crack into your server. Plus, you get the fun of trying to convince the big email gatekeepers that you’re still legit. And for that one they change the rules constantly and on a whim.
My family and immediate friends are all on my Matrix server.
I have my own dedicated public server, so I can selfhost anything I want. And I do selfhost a lot.
I selfhost since so long that some of my domains could vote, but I still need some “mainstream” channels to be reached by several people.
If we can argue that close friends will put extra effort to contact you on whatever you use, it’s also true that your landlord, the plumber, the chick you picked up last night, won’t give a shit and simply consider you a lunatic 99% of times if you tell them to use anything non-mainstream.
Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.
And people still use email.
Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.
But then you are simply using Whatsapp with extra steps.
Good luck self hosting something to message
Dude, it’s pretty easy to set up matrix on a docker container
your contacts
Fuck you’re right
Why self-host messaging when there are so many good options?
You’re asking the wrong guy. I don’t think it makes sense either even if I’m a (moderate) self-hosting guy.
We don’t need to go back to handwritten mail, FOSS is the way to go.
Writing someone a letter is a very personal thing and you’re creating a memory. Something tangible, concrete, also weighs in on reality. Looking at a piece of paper with your handwrite makes you understand you’re commiting to something.
I’m a FOSS loon but the craze of making everything digital is absurd. I’ve listened to people criticizing others for using paper and a pencil to take down a memo, note or even journaling, when they can do it on their phone.
Is existing so dreadful nowadays? Does the notion of leaving proof of existence scares?
Its nothing to do with contempt for the media, or not wanting to leave evidence of my existence or anything like that, its just that I got shit to do.
Yeah, handwriting sucks. I used to type my homework in a mechanical typewriter, holy cow even that sucked. Going from that to an electrical typewriter that could hold a line in memory was amazing, but still nothing compared to a proper word processor. Wordstar in MS-DOS anyone?
I still like to sketch my ideas from time to time, but all my permanent notes are stored in Joplin, encrypted, in local backup, and synced to the cloud. I can’t afford to lose them, and I can’t afford to lug around with me a heavy suitcase of papers.
I’ve seen young people wishing for simpler times, kids using Polaroid cameras, hunting retro consoles that were already ancient when they were born, longing for music that was way before their time, etc. I get they’re disillusioned with the current state of things, but romanticizing the past is not a healthy way to cope with the horrible today.
I don’t doubt you have a busy life. And that is not the subject at hand here.
What should concern us, collectively, is that we are constantly being pushed the notion that we do not have enough time and that tech is always the solution, when it is not.
I’m going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.
I most certainly don’t write faster than I type, and sending an email or a chat message certainly doesn’t take longer than finding something to write with and something to write on. There is a big factor of habit and lifestyle - I don’t usually write stuff down, so I don’t have prepared/assigned tools for that, but I use my computer a lot, so I do have software installed and tools/commands memorised.
And, frankly, out of many possible options, plain text is something computers are really good at - there’s basically no risk of running out of space, it’s indexable and searchable, it’s editable, and it’s very universal.
Things do get a bit more complex when you include formatting, and a lot more complicated when you start adding annotations or illustrations, or even just more freeform writing styles, but there’s still a major factor of habit - I don’t know what my note taking would look like if I had a habit of pen and paper, but I know I’m very comfortable with using tech for that, and it works great for me!
I’m going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.
Maybe for you, but opening KWrite takes only 5-6 key presses and I type much faster than I write
Not to mention the fact theyd be expecting me to write well enough to be able to reread it later. Even if I wrote it at half my typing speed I still would not be able to make that shit out.
And not just you, short hand used to be ubiquitous before the computer, now it’s all but extinct.
I’m going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type
I have a very hard time believing this. From some quick googling, it seems that experienced writers can do 40 wpm, which is really slow in comparison to an (even an inexperienced) typer. Also, typing has no risk of being unreadable, unlike writing (e.g. doctor’s written notes).
and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.
Maybe if your computer is really slow.
If you have bad calligraphy, practice. Won’t hurt you.
Typing works perfectly fine for me in the vast majority of cases.
An inexperienced typer might be slower than 40 wpm. I’ve seen people type maybe 10 words per minute using only index fingers and looking for every letter. An inexperienced touch typer is maybe 40-60 wpm range though.
I do up to around 140 wpm which many people think is lightning fast but then there’s people who can do 250 and I can’t even comprehend being that fast. Goddamn Sean Wrona.
Just to give some perspective.
Yeah you said that, until a doctor hand you a handwritten letter.
Weren’t those a thing to admire? Chicken scratches on the ground could be more readable.
A guy I worked with, not even super closely, left me a handwritten card when he moved on saying it was a pleasure working with me. I did not expect it and almost certainly didn’t deserve it but I still have that card somewhere.
That was nice.
There is something to be said in writing a handwritten letter for someone special once in a while. But I’m so glad that I can just pick up a phone and call my brother who lives in another state and chat with him (no long distance charges). If it’s something better said in writing there’s email and texts.
There’s also the aspect of text’s that are more personal that no one really talks about. You can just check in on a friend to see how they are doing without really having any other reason to contact them. I know I appreciate it when that happens to me.
I guess you could write someone a letter asking how they are doing, but if the answer is ‘not good’, by the time you receive the reply days have passed and you probably missed the opportunity to be there for them when they needed it.
This isn’t even considering the environmental benefits of not having to A) produce paper, pens, envelopes, stamps and B) physically deliver the letters.
There’s a lot of things about modern tech that you could criticize, but I don’t think more/better options for communication is one of them honestly.
That last panel hit me like a truck because… yeah, that’s what people think happens when they do their little personal choice things to pretend they matter.
They really buy like a paper book once and go “ah, yes, Bezos is fuming right now” while he makes another billion.
We have lost all sense of how to influence society and all ability to gauge scale. For all the folksy traditionalism in this (which includes driving a gas guzzler from the 70s, apparently?) the Internet has created this entirely disproportionate sense of our footprint on the world and this strip is as much a result of the hyperconnected dystopia as everything it’s complaining about.
In my experience this is extra bad for Americans who, frankly, didn’t need that much of a push to go from their individualist, self-centered perception of society to this vision of sitting on a couch listening to a walkman as activism.
I’ll buy something other than a ‘gas guzzler’ the second I’m not required to trade away my privacy to go electric, and can disable every single last beep, ding, screech and other unnecessary sound some stupid fuck thought was a good idea.
Oh how I long for the day someone invents a car without a touchscreen.
I’m a fan of big screens myself. What I’m not a fan of is putting everything into that screen. I want the screen for the infotainment system only. All hvac and essential controls should still be physical buttons and dials. And of course, ditch all the tracking and data collection that comes with the car.
Honestly that exists. Just bought a BMW i3 (their first electric) and you can disable just about everything, even the sound it makes to alert pedestrians, the infotainment warning screen everyone hates, and seat belt chimes, through an app and a BT OBDII dongle. The 2014-2017 models all have 3G cellular antennas so they mostly don’t work anymore (3G is totally gone in my area). It also has buttons for climate and their great iDrive infotainment controller. It’s a fantastic quirky electric at dirt cheap prices.
BUT, your point stands since that’s 1 out of how many electric vehicles? Yeah, sucks.
We have lost all sense of how to influence the world and all ability to gauge scale.
Absolutely correct!
I believe in “voting with your wallet” and I do little sacrifices to respect my ideas, but I’m conscious that I’m just one step above people clicking on petitions online in terms of impact.
I think the point is that we’re deluded to think that voting with our wallets does anything. You still work. You still buy. You still support the system. The one step you’re taking only gets you partway from the couch to the refrigerator. It doesn’t get you out the door and into a protest that would actually make a difference.
You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.
Of course, because I’m no more 16 arguing that a revolution is the solution.
Indeed, you are thoroughly pacified. Your objections and moral outage quelled and your sense of significance sustained by the illusion that simply buying from a different conglomerate will have any impact.
Any suggestion that your impotent protest is inadequate must surely come from a childish fool.
Ping me when you changed the world with whatever you are actually doing behind that keyboard 👋
It’s so hard for people to agree that we should be doing something. Instead you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy. If OP was a hypocrite but they still said the right thing why would you deliberately disagree? What would motivate you to act?
we should be doing something
Ok, let’s dive into it. What does “doing something” exactly mean? I’ve been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.
“Doing something” means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people “doing something” means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.
What does it mean for you “doing something”? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I’ll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always “very small”.
Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.
you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy
Who said I’m not doing anything? OP said “You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.” to which I replied that I’m no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race… and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.
If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don’t know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.
Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it’s an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.
Masturbating, I’m masturbating. And so are you when you think that voting with your wallet does anything.
Masturbating, I’m masturbating.
Wow! Do it in public fully naked with the reasons of the protest tattooed on your body. You may hit the news and reach lots of people!
I must be imagining all the Governors in the northern states begging us Canadians to start visiting again. Voting with you wallet does work if enough people get on board.
The comic is hyperbolic and not in a good way. “They wouldn’t like it” - yeah, if millions of Americans did the same. And it isn’t even necessary to go pre-digital or pre-internet to “cut out the middleman”.
I agree with you on most, but this:
which includes driving a gas guzzler from the 70s, apparently?
is hyperbole on your part.
First of all, by-default internet connected cars haven’t been a thing until relatively recently (10 years max I guess). And then, gas guzzling does not necessarily correlate with age. Cars consuming less than, say, 5l/100km have existed since at least the 80s (1st hand experience, and the car was already 20 years old at that point).
Your comment made me remember how 25 years ago it was unthinkable, even illegal, for a company to spy on you without consent. Tech isn’t the problem, regulation has also become a joke, that’s what gave tech bros free reign, as long as they make loads of money fast so rich investors can concentrate even more wealth.
Big tech does have consent. They hide it in the TOS that hardly anyone reads.
I guess the car thing comes from the use of “pre-computerized”. Cars have had computers in them much longer than they’ve been connected to the Internet by default. I guess my mistake was taking the panel at its word there.
Also, man, I appreciate the alignment, but the “millions of Americans” really made me feel icky. Beyond the moral and political refusal to give Americans primary decisionmaking power on these things, these trends and companies are global. Even in the US you probably would need tens of millions to make a dent, but some of these userbases are in the billions. Millions of Americans decided Facebook was for old people and left it and it’s still the biggest social media platform on the planet by some margin. That’d be the collective inability to gauge scale in a dystopia of global monopolies I was talking about.
this is it. guilliotines exist. is organizing against corporations, or actually understanding the tech we use so hopeless for regular people that they feel have to maintain 1980s shit just to be rid of it?
Also, it’s getting harder and harder to live without modern devices.
Try living in the modern world without a cell phone. It’s hard to do almost anything without one. If you get a flip phone that can handle text messages you can get a bit further, but it’s a matter of time before that’s not enough.
And sure, you can listen to cassettes on a walkman. And maybe you saved some tapes from 40 years ago, and maybe they still work. But, how do you get more music? Sure, you can probably find a place to order tapes online. But, then they want to verify your account and that means texting a verification code to your phone and…
As for print media. Sure, you can still buy paper books. But, if you want a real newspaper, good luck. There are a few that are still around, AFAIK you can still get the NY Times in print. But, I really doubt you still even have a local newspaper, let alone a newspaper that prints on paper.
All but one of the major papers where I’m from have a print version. I imagine that changes in different countries.
But… yeah, point taken. Over here you can’t even not have a Whatsapp account. Some businesses and transactions just… assume you do and default to it for communication.
An interesting wrinkle is that some of that legacy media is part of this loop, too. You can, in fact, buy new tape players and tapes and you can put new music into them. It’s all just very expensive trendy, hipstery small run collector stuff that costs a lot of money and sells to privileged people with a nostalgic desire for posturing. Which does put a lot of where this message ends up in context, I suppose.
That’s exactly what is so nice about FOSS based systems. You can use technology but without the tech bros and the corporate enshittification.
FOSS is great and I love it but we do have our own idiots/FOSSbros, even if it’s not about corporate enshittification.
Saw a post on wafrn (rip on maintenance rn) complaining about FOSSbros and was confused, until they gave an example of this blog post where some asshole was shitting on the author for having criticisms against distros for not being easy and friendly for blind/visually empaired people. The blog post is line-by-line breakdown of that guy’s comment.
Original Comment
Okay, first of all, it’s GNU/Linux, not “Linux.” You keep saying “Linux” like it’s some magic OS that fell from the sky, when in reality it’s just the kernel. The real operating system—the one that gives you your shells, your coreutils, your compilers, your sanity—is the GNU system. By not calling it GNU/Linux, you’re erasing the work of decades of free software pioneers who fought tooth and nail so you could sit there whining about things not being shiny enough. You sound like the kind of person who installs Arch and then blogs about how hard it is to use a terminal. News flash: it’s not hard—you’re just lazy.
Second, the whole “Linux isn’t built for people” line? Give me a break. You want an OS that’s “built for people”? What people? Consumers? Passive clickers? People who treat a computer like a Netflix vending machine? GNU/Linux isn’t built for users the way Apple or Microsoft defines users—as data sources for ads, or potential subscribers to whatever crapware-as-a-service model they’re shoving this fiscal quarter. GNU/Linux is built for users in the sense of users who use their brains. If you’re allergic to learning, maybe this ecosystem isn’t for you—and that’s fine, just stop trying to dumb it down for the rest of us.
You’re mad because you don’t “feel welcomed”? Look, freedom isn’t about making you feel hugged while your system silently phones home and installs DRM. GNU/Linux is about you owning your machine. It’s about writing a shell script to replace some bloated GUI monstrosity because you can. It’s about reading the manual and understanding your stack, not begging for some dev to “just make it work like macOS.” You’re not being excluded—you’re being challenged. If you don’t like that, maybe stick to using ChromeOS with your Google account tethered to every bodily function.
And don’t think I didn’t notice you never once mentioned freedom in your post. Not even once. Not a single nod to software freedom, user control, or the social contract behind all this code. That tells me everything I need to know. You think this is about convenience, when it’s really about liberation. This isn’t about your fonts not rendering or your Wi-Fi card needing a firmware blob. This is about you refusing to confront the responsibilities of being in control.
You want GNU/Linux to “love you back”? That’s not how this works. GNU/Linux isn’t Trump, trying to flatter you while stabbing you in the back. It’s not some product that wants to manipulate your emotions to get you to upgrade. It’s a tool, and it assumes you’re smart enough to wield it. If you want love, get a dog. If you want freedom, open a terminal.
So we do have the “FOSS is always easy and gets the job done, if you can’t handle it you’re an incompetent toddler who just wants big tech to make your life easy,” tech bros. Like that “smart guy makes fun of disenfranchised people for still participating in a society” comic.
or, you know, you can have best of both worlds with open technologies. tech that you own and control.
i wonder whether we will have to seize the means of computer chip production as well …
Of course we would.
I am and probably always will be a tech enthusiast, but as time goes on I find myself more and more looking for old technology to avoid planned obsolescence, anti-repair bs, telemetry & tracking, lack of consideration for quality of life…
This is not how things were supposed to be. But this is how things will be if we don’t do something about oligarchs and certain CEOs.
Technology can develop in various directions. This is exactly what it looks like when technology is developed for consumerism. Buy more now, it doesn’t need to last, stimulate the economy. Rent what you can, everything else as a service.
It is really weird, isn’t it. I’ve always been a major enthusiast for Tech. Always wanted to get in on VR when it was first evolving, as I could see how else could use VR. I bought oneof the first iPods cause I messed with one and realized it was a game changer for what we had at that time. Now, I find myself cautioning people on the use of AI and home automation. I feel like I’m turning into a Luddite.
Don’t be ashamed of being a Luddite. The Luddites were actually fighting for a righteous cause.
Too true, just didn’t think I’d be following their lead…
pre-computerised car
No one want to fiddle with carburetor anymore thank you very much.
And tbh, 2010-2015 is comfortable enough and less bullshit.
Pretty sure they mean computerized interiors like infotainment systems. Probably not talking about ECU and internal computerized parts.
But all displayed item from bottom panel is item from the 80s and 90s though, so precomputerised kinda either mean carburetor or primitive ecu that only control very limited function and can’t scanned with a scanner tool, which is still imo bad. As an automechanic I certainly doesn’t want to go back to scratching my head trying to figure out what’s wrong.
Edit: not to be too pedantic about it, but that’s what i get from this comic.
Pre-telemetry cars from the naughties are the sweet spot. No cell connection either. New cars are icky.
telemetry … cell connection
When did this start to be a standard feature anyhow, and how does adoption track across brands & timeline?
In the EU, cars have to be equipped with automatic emergency call systems since 2018. So probably since then most brands will have had it, as they are required to have cell connection hardware anyway.
There were a few sites that tracked manufacturer adoption of when the telemetry black boxes got installed, but I cannot find the specific ones I referenced a few years ago. You can “shop” for telemetry insurance and check that way too. The car won’t be eligible if it doesn’t have the hardware.
On one hand, firmware update sound really nice so lemon isn’t as sour. On the other hand, good, reliable car have absolutely 0 chance of getting enshittified by car maker, and they have to make sure the thing is good from the get go or risk getting forced to recall.
I agree the examples are all over the place.
I think that’s more aimed at Internet connected vehicles than those with an ECU.
My favourite cars to own were made between 2003 to 2011. They’re so peaceful to drive compared to modern cars that constantly fucking screech and ding at you just for starting the damn thing.
Same here, mine is 2006 and already quite computerized for my taste.
But recently I did a trip in a 2020s car and it was … disconcerting. First of all it was automatic which I’m not used to. Unable to get it in gear, the 9yo boy in the backseat said: look at the screen, it’s telling you what to do!. He was right. Even so the car would not let me back into a patch of high grass, kept blocking the wheels. Jarringly.
Speak for yourself, there’s nothing wrong with my carburettor!
My distributor on the other hand is a pain in the ass. Electronic ignition has its upsides…
guilliotines exist folks.
we dont actually need to subject ourselves to being luddites.
Luddites got a bad rap from capitalists. The Luddites were not anti-technology, they were against technology destroying people’s jobs. Their whole thing was destroying industrial machinery and sabotaging factories because they were replacing human labor without any alternative in place for the actual people. Hundreds of thousands of people were turned off the land, unemployed, and starving because of greedy capitalists trying to not pay for labor.
If the same people were around today, they’d be trying to blow up AI server farms.
good point
luddites.
Luddites, the followers of Ned Ludd? The guys who smashed machines and went to war against the factory owners who were defending their factories with soldiers and cannons?
They’re a lot more similar to the guys with guillotines than you seem to think.
Pre-computer cars sucked. Anyone that’s worked on mechanical fuel injection will tell you so.
Dude I would love a non computerized car with fuel injection. Of course I stay with an older car with computer. My tuck and wife car are sending shit to tech bros.
I.would be interested in starting a penpal club. That be something cool to bring back in vogue. Of course we could start forms that don’t do tracking or drown you in ads.
You could get one by installing an aftermarket ECU and a fuel injection system in a car from those eras. It’s probably harder than most people would be willing to do, but it’s definitely doable
Nah, mechanical injection diesel engines are awesome.
i think these a microprocessors though? no internet access for them.
Is this supposed to be satire? How is print media owned by massive conglomerates, flip phones with no OSS firmware, handwritten letters delivered by a literal middleman, avoiding the middlemen??
They’re not defining “middleman” in the traditional sense of an intermediary in an economic exchange. The first panel introduces a new definition of the term as a tech bro attempting to insinuate himself into the process of communicating with others. The remedies offered would indeed seem to preclude this type of middleman from interfering with the process.
This is what using Linux feels like.
yeah no need to find 1980s tech to use.
I’ve been wanting to convert my life to “off grid tech”. I have a nest camera i bought in 2016. So it’s pre Google. Starting about 6 months ago, Google told me unless I allow them full 24/7 access to the cam then I can’t use it. A product i bought almost a decade ago is useless unless I let them spy on me. Fuck you Google.
So anyways, off grid tech. Home surveillance on my own local server protected with physical data and VPN. No more streaming, pirate everything with local server. No more Google or Amazon anything. Music? Mp3. Email? No Gmail, maybe Proton or something. I’ll do all banking through home desktop through VPN. Etc, etc.
I hope to have all these things achieved by 2030
For email, I recommend purelymail. It’s ran by one guy I believe, but it’s a solid cheap service. It’s also pretty easy to setup your own email domains. I’m probably just a nerd, but I love custom email domains.
I would strongly recommend you at least have your own domain if you intend on buying a service from one guy. Everyone can land under a bus one day.
that sure would be a BIG bus!! i didn’t know flashmobs went this far…
😑
just saying, but the email domain everyoneunderabus.com is still available…
help desk -> sysadmin -> CISO -> goat farmer
I’m going back in a lot of areas, yeah.
When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you need to go backwards to correct and go forward again
I’d like to add to the third panel: go see live entertainment. Local, not Live Nation. Support local bands, artists, thespians, and comics.
