I appreciate everyone who has taken time to respond. Unfortunately, some of the responses demonstrate how much many of us privacy-minded technologists live in ivory towers and have no idea how hard it is to get the rest of the world to take on the added friction of switching.
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The issue is not the quality of OSS alternatives. It's that end users don't want to even think about hosting and infrastructure (leaving aside network effects for now). The same way they don't want to think about the plumbing in their home, and just call a plumber if it's not working. So I see the issue of trustworthy IT infrastructure to be conceptually similar to fatbergs, which are a mess that centralised authorities pay millions to clean up.
That's not exactly giving hope; but I would say that what makes it approachable to end users requires managed infrastructure that they don't need to think about. Including paying for it, as users have also been trained to expect to get consumer digital services for free. It's a high bar, but Signal and mastodon have some success because they provide this. DIY options like installing Linux or hosting your own service do not.
@dangoodin The French government, in a bid to get its citizens and businesses off US tech, recently sponsored an open source video conferencing project.
https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet
@dangoodin I'm slowly working towards not depending on any of them. But here's catch-22 that I'm yet to find a good solution for:
Your email domain.
Are there any trustworthy domain registrars that don't require you to have a valid email address in order to acquire and manage a new domain?
@dangoodin Those types of orgs should really invest in their own NextCloud server or something
I take it you've never been a member of a union or non-technologist non-profit org.
@dangoodin I totally feel you. I have been a platform refusenik for many years and have found that people often take a depressingly compliant, conformist attitude towards all their technology decisions. They just do the most popular thing and feel that somebody else should be responsible for the consequences.
But strangely, after a few years of being the annoying guy at a party calling CEOs fascists (not a good tactic), followed by many years of being more "oh no sorry I'm not on FasciTalk. Here's my phone number/email." Things changed.
Now, sooo many people are starting to understand and take an interest in having more independent infrastructure. So I'm actually more optimistic than I've been since like 2007.
That said, I do find that you can't really convince anyone of anything. They have to come to their own conclusions on their own terms. But you can be supportive of people when they do, especially in helping them understand that FOSS solutions may be quite different from glossy corporate stuff and require community care and janitorial work.
@dangoodin adoption and reach are the hardest things to overcome for a product that requires critical mass.
And even if you do not, the truckloads of $$ that have gone into making google or whatever 1/visible and 2/easy to set up are a force on their own.
Call it VHS vs. betamax but without external forces or regulatory events, it is VERY hard to displace even shitty incumbents, just because they happen to be there already.
I appreciate everyone who has taken time to respond. Unfortunately, some of the responses demonstrate how much many of us privacy-minded technologists live in ivory towers and have no idea how hard it is to get the rest of the world to take on the added friction of switching.
There's a real challenge when most of your external emails are passing through Google or Microsoft anyway, and when your social circle just stares blankly when you suggest Signals over WhatsApp. Critical mass takes a lot of force to overcome all that inertia.
@dangoodin I'm in the middle of setting up everything needed for immediate family to host what they need on either infra I control (or proton). Calendars, todo lists, docs, pictures, videos/media, LLMs etc.
It has been, and will continue to be, a royal PITA. But its all I can do to make the problem small enough to handle by myself. The good news is that this year my entire family suddenly has the intrinsic motivation to get off of these platforms. I just have to make it easy enough for them to be able to do it. And come up with ways to segment the few things that I can't control (work and school accounts like you mentioned)
Its difficult. Its slow. But since they are motivated I'm hopeful we can make it happen.
You're doing the lord's work, Varx!
@dangoodin I think this very thing is a large part of the problem. The exact people who care enough to use these alternatives despite the friction don't care enough to understand why others don't. Badgering, belittling, demeaning, and otherwise disregarding different lived experiences is the preferred response.
It's the same mindset as the people they criticize moved up the stack from technology to interpersonal relations.
@dangoodin I love how Linux is always the solution. Folks have no clue how regular people operate. If I were to hand a Linux laptop to any of the smart but non-technical folks I know, they’d struggle hard. Expecting them to install Linux or install and manage a number of FOSS tools? That’s not happening.
@thomasareed @dangoodin I'm often amazed at the inability of "regular people" to follow instructions, even on a step by step guide.
Yes, because you're a technologist and they're not. Patronizing them is counterproductive.
@thomasareed @dangoodin I have a vague hope that Valve might popularise Linux with a subsection of gamers via all the work they are putting into the Steam Machine and their Linux based SteamOS. That may start some sort of snowball. Or possibly not.
@thomasareed @dangoodin I don't think most people could install Windoze either. It's just that it's forced upon everyone when they purchase a new machine and buy peer pressure.
Fair, but that doesn't change the fact that moving to decentralized platforms adds more friction than non-technologists can tolerate.
Right, and often, from there, many of these folks go on to blame the non-technical folks. That only compounds the problem.
@dangoodin Yeah. I mean, they’re not wrong… it’s hard to trust Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc these days. But there’s a good reason that it has never yet been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” I myself - a technical person - have irrevocably borked Linux installs to the point that the only option was to erase and start over, just by trying to install a piece of open source software on it.
@thomasareed @dangoodin Chromebook is a Linux. It’s not hard to just install everything like on Linux Mint or a Ubuntu Desktop. No one is asking to install Slackware for non tech folks or Gentoo. I did this for a lot of “old” but perfectly working Windows laptops at a volunteer run Sunday school and the users have no issues. They open a Google Chrome and go about their day.
Easy for you. Not for non technologiests.
@dangoodin Much the same when people say "Just tell 'em not to run Windows anymore!", etc.
It’s the whole “we all have to participate in society” thing. I need to communicate with my father’s caregivers and they have a phone app to check in at the facility. My kids use Google Classroom at their schools.
Do I wish it were otherwise? Sure. Am I going to make it difficult to care for my father or do my kids’ homework? Nope. Gotta pick my battles.
The privacy of sensitive union discussions is most def a battle worth picking.
No argument there ✊
@dangoodin If any of these larger orgs have the capacity to do like a "social media strategy", they should also have the capacity to build a strategic roadmap to leave big tech.
One step at a time, starting with the easiest steps and growing their experience.
It can't be like "we have no strategy to leave Facebook, therefore we're going hook, line and sinker". But I think that's what's happening.
Do you have experience with unions? The ones I know (my wife's and the 3 unions I have been a member of) most definitely don't have the resources required.
@dangoodin only in Denmark/Sweden - where my experience is that all unions have enough resources to write a plan and start executing it. Actually, many of the unions have A LOT of resources. But they're run like corporations that sell a product (memberships, legal protection, networking, post-education). That product is marketed (on social media), hence they all have social media strategies and dedicated employees.
And these unions aren't using any of the platforms listed in my OP? Impressive if so.
@dangoodin it's a misunderstanding: I was saying they have the capacity to write a plan and get off big tech.
not that they're actually doing it! 🙃
You are not alone in having difficulty convincing people to switch. This thread contains alternatives to several Big Tech offerings.
I guess the smaller servers are not cool enough for some, and others don't want to have to learn a new system. And there is the constant campaign against small servers, asking if they are safe and generally throwing doubt.
Also smaller servers are more vulnerable to attacks like DDOS and stuff.
So it amounts to a lot of resistance.
Not to mention the non-trivial amount of work required. With Slack, you can register and account and host hundreds of people in 5 minutes. None of the Slack alternatives are that easy.
@dangoodin Perhaps a mental shift could help light a different path?
Those organizations have formed with people who are spending their focus on solving a problem. They cannot solve all problems and would rather exert energy solving the problem they exist to solve.
This is where Community helps. In a community, you have different people with different priorities. In your communities, you have you.
Do you have bandwidth to identify what your union is using, say, Google for, and get that shifted over to a better solution, at the cost of becoming the union's expert and manager in that domain?
My biggest concern with my union is its deep reliance on Slack, seconded by Zoom. Yes, there are Slack alternatives, but all of them require a large amount of admin work from someone with a fair amount of experience. They also lack much of the usability features of Slack. (Zoom alternatives are also not suitable for a union our size.) I posted a query a few months ago seeking Slack alternatives. I got a lot of suggestions and I investigated each one. NONE of them were suitable, given our limited resources.
@dangoodin Do you have a clear idea of what's missing from the current slack alternatives? Zoom is too big a beast for me to even consider at the moment.
@dangoodin Even trying to pursuade certain relatives off WhatsApp. Oh my friends are all on it & I don't want notifications for another app as well.
@dangoodin working on posting a full-fledged list of alternatives here, for people & teams looking to change (so far just a few - stay tuned) - https://goodreports.com
We developed a dependence on them, you can’t just wish it wasn’t so. We have to make it easy for individual developers to make products for people. It can be done, we just have to want to do it.
Agreed. But no one seems to be doing that sucessfully, with maybe the exception of Signal and maybe Mastodon. Yes, others are trying but the usability is often lacking and the security is untested.
@dangoodin @markhurst -- maybe users could systematically keep their eyes on software, and encourage independent devs trying to make great software for them. i've been working nonstop forever, and it's impossible to get people even take a look at new stuff.
@dangoodin @markhurst -- maybe users could systematically keep their eyes on software, and encourage independent devs trying to make great software for them. i've been working nonstop forever, and it's impossible to get people even take a look at new stuff.
@davew @dangoodin hey Dave! thanks for the note. I remember using UserLand Frontier back in 1997 (which I still appreciate as it helped start the Creative Good blog which still exists 29 years later). Anyway LMK what I should be looking at today, as I'm putting together goodreports.com
since you like frontier, try
it's my latest outliner, and it even has a scripting language patterned after frontier. ;-)
also jake savin is working on a headless frontier for linux and latest mac os,. i can't wait to have it running on my servers.
and then https://feed.land/ -- it's a lot more than a feed reader.
dan there's so much out there, and techrunch is all that's left and they basically cover venture capital.
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Remember when the hype was that social media promised better awareness, connectivity, and propagation of ideas and innovation? It’s had the opposite effect. It’s now just like conservative media: the noise blots out almost all of the signal.
@dangoodin @davew @markhurst even if usability is great, sometimes it is appropriate product documentation that is lacking e.g @delta
@dangoodin I self host a matrix server for a dozen friends or so… it’s not made for normal people to run, and most clients suck differently
Yes, exactly. Try using Matrix in a 100+ union made up of mostly non technologists. The added friction makes alternatives a non starter.
@dangoodin We are all nerds on it so we deal with it and even then it crashed today after someone uploaded a too big cat h265 video…
@dangoodin Noone NEEDS to use those comanies services. Any person, business or organisation can deside to stop using them. Then make a plan and line up other opions, and then moving on.
You're talking like a privacy-minded technologist. We are a minority. For people who lack tech skills, almost all of the alternatives are unusable to the average person.
Linux is usable by everyone, though many people may need help getting set up.
Everyone can use other search engines than google or bing.
Everyone can buy a degoogled mobile phone and use it.
Everyone can sign up to proton ot tuta for mail, calendar and more.
Everyone can get an account on a hosted Nextcloud service.
Companies and organisations with some economy can buy help with setting up and/or managing services.
The hard thing is makeing the desicion, which, acknowledged, includes the will to do some getting used to, some changes of habits, and maybe letting go with some convenience.
I think you're underestimating the friction many of your suggested alternatives add to non-technical, non-privacy-minded folks. Conving my union to move off of Slack has failed and will continue to fail until the alternatives become as usable.
Yes, people CAN use alternatives, but the vast majority won't until they get much better.
@dangoodin That is no reason to give up. :)