I’ve been seeing lots of people talking about disengaging from the big tech companies lately (for obvious reasons). People I follow on social media are talking about getting off of Meta products, “de-Googling” themselves, and generally spending less time scrolling (whether doom- or not).
It CAN be scary—giving up what has become a big part of our lives and looking for alternatives. And also frustrating. Zuck and his bros have spent a LOT of time, money, and brainpower integrating themselves into our lives in a way that makes it difficult to unentangle. I don’t know about you, but when I take the time to think about it and look at the tools and platforms I use every day, I see how dependent I have become on tools that appear to be “free” but that I’m actually paying for by giving them access to more of my life that I am really comfortable with.
Like a seemingly hopelessly matted and snarled mess of yarn, I have to remind myself it will take time and effort and attention to disencumber myself from these leeching tools I’ve been using for decades. In fact, I found myself recently sitting on my couch with an actual mess of yarn. It took more time than I would have thought, but I did end up making sense of it eventually. And it was surprisingly meditative, with some favorite tunes in the background.
I’ve also been trying to (at least) de-Google myself for a while now. I’ll take a day and work really hard on exploring other options, for like, replacing Gmail. I’ll get 90% into it—sign up for a couple platforms to test out, maybe even play around with them—then basically forget about them. And a couple weeks later, something will spark my enthusiasm for it again and I’ll repeat the process. So basically I feel like I haven’t made any REAL progress on actually MOVING my shit off Gmail.
But then I think back to my experience untangling yarn. Something that took so much time (and effort, on the part of a large cadre of tech bros) to create isn’t going to be simple or easy to truly extricate myself from. Yes, it will take time and effort on my part. No, the alternatives may not be as “smooth” or as “pretty” as I’m used to. But this is one small thing I can do to protest, to try and jam the cogs of the huge socio-economic-political machinery that the US has become.
I may not have tons of money to donate to causes, I may not always be able to go to protests, but this is something I CAN do. It is the LEAST I can do. I can refuse to bury my head in the sand. There are a lot of ways in which the “powers that be” right now are impacting my life that I cannot control, but this I CAN control. Meta’s golden handcuffs are breakable.
Photo by Lachlan Donald on Unsplash
So I am going back to the online toolbox—back to finish what I started yesterday, finding an ethical replacement for gmail. Each of the options emphasize different things, so part of this process is deciding what are the most important features and aspects for you—honestly, I think this sometimes it’s the hardest part!
Here are a few options that I’ve been checking out, in case you’re in the market for a replacement as well:
For my business, I started using Lark Suite a few months ago. Though I did just find out that it is owned by ByteDance (yes, of TikTok fame), so I can’t attest to its longevity with all the brouhaha going on lately, but it has been working well for me. Wikipedia also has a list of alternative office suites, if you’re looking for the whole kit and caboodle.
Since I’m an Apple gal, if I’m not doing a lot of back and forth with others, I usually use the native apps instead of Microsoft stuff when I can. But the collaborative features of Google Drive have been another of the more difficult things to replace. Especially as an editor and co-author, finding a good way to write together has been an important one for me.
I just found a new online collaborative writing platform that I’m trying out: Ellipsus. So far, so good. Like everything, it takes a bit of learning curve, but I’m really liking it—it has a good organization, clean interface, and useful formatting.
I have also used Dropbox for a long time, mostly just to make sure I had access to my own work from different places and machines; but it’s also great for sharing work with others. [Note that the link above is my referral link; we can both get extra fee space if you use it.]
What have you found to be helpful if you’ve been untangling yourself from the clutches of the big tech bros?