Using Other's Services

In 2019, it is difficult to have a day go by where one is not frustrated by the tools one uses,or communities surrounding them. Same for data breaches or personal data misuse. People complain that platforms or websites walk all over them, with little regard for what matters for the little guy. These people want the platforms to change for them, or want other people banned or removed for one thing or another. According to some, these massed platforms should be built regualted like public works or goods. The people are the real ones with power, and it would take so little for them to exersize it.

A platform changes its terms of service, or implements a new EULA, and what do people do? Complain about it on the SAME PLATFORM. By doing so, they have already given in and accepted it. If the new policies are unacceptable, then it stands to reason to simply drop the platform or software until it changes. There is simply so much out there, and one less program or tool can be replaced, even if it is a very core tool, like a kernel. Instead, people treat Twitter or Windows as a basic right, something that they are using must therefore always work for them. The real influential power a user has, if presented with the option of trying to influence a entity to adjust corporate policy, is to walk away until it is acceptable. To do less is to play to their rules.

Need a new OS? Try a Linux or BSD. New social platform? Mastadon, or a mailing list. Video platform? Vimeo, or dozens more. Nothing is irreplaceable at the cost of human freedoms. No tool exists? Write your own, or find or pay someone else to. The pioneers of computers and software got where they did because they wrote their own tools when others did not exist. We as a culture have forgotten this, and have sacrificed our freedoms, time, mental health, and sovreignty at the alter of convience, accessability, and compatability. Anyone can make the things THEY buy do exactly what they want, and too often we forget that as we are repeatedly demanded to forget our independence. Our future is in our own hands, so if there is something we disagree with, we change it, fork it, rewrite it, or reimagine it. Its up to us.