People hated meetings and phone calls and even answering machines so our current world of short text messages is one we strived for years in order to finally build.
People hated reading books, too, that was for eggheads and nerds. So boring. And even watching TV was boring. Even after they made 500 channels the meme was “500 channels and nothing good on”. So today’s world of tailor-made, algorithmic For You pages is a godsend by our corporate overlords.
We have finally built the perfect life and I hate it.
Of course I hadn’t really planned on all this infrastructure becoming co-opted by a handful of corporations quickly becoming the richest in the world nor that our newfould decentralized politically liberated media would immediately get gunked up by a bunch of nazis and climate denialists.
I had a hard time getting along with the people around me (still do) so for me the digital world was a paradise. All positive. It wasn’t until Facebook won the internet that I wanted out. And heaven knows that I want out. I’ve been fighting to get out for a long time. First of October was my eight year anniversary without smart phone. A decade prior to that I spent one year without internet at home, only at work (and that, 2007, was before I got smartphone, which I got in fall of 2009 and had for eight years until fall of 2017).
As I rail against The Internet, I have to remind myself that people wanted it. I wanted it. Yes, I didn’t want the Meta-owned Google-goopy AppStore-locked prison toy internet full of brownshirted redcaps but I shoulda coulda woulda seen the writing on the wall. The network effect is a helluva drug.
But… now we have options? We have Fedi, we have Gemini, we still have e-mail, we even have Jitsi and XMPP and IRC (kind of). Why do I still want out? Can’t I just shake this hangup and keep on rocking on the free net? Yeah, maybe! It’s just that: I’m not happy with where I am in life and I am trying to make changes. And I’ve been trying for a very long time now. More than two decades. Where I’ll end up after those changes, I don’t know. In the grave, most likely, with the battle unfinished and unwon. One day at a time, my friends.♥︎