If Google randomly decides to terminate my account for some reason and won’t tell me why or allow me to reasonably appeal, I’m screwed.

GDrive, my YouTube, my play store purchases, my Gmail going back since forever, and even all these 3rd party sites where I used “login with Google” could be instantly toasted and irrecoverable.

I became aware that this is way way too much exposure to one company and every component is linked together so if, hypothetically, I left a comment on YouTube that triggered some angsty AI ban algorithm, which led to the whole account getting zapped, I would be one sad puppy.

Better to selfhost, encrypt all, and be in control of my own destiny.

didn’t see anyone touching on the most important part, and that is the decisions regarding our data we make now are coming to bite us in the ass five or ten years from now. our chicken brains can’t comprehend that, not really. we need a direct feedback loop: hot stove, finger, ouch - no more touching.

up until a decade or two ago, we didn’t have the concept of forever in our lives. do stupid shit in school, in uni they don’t know about it. fail at one job, the next one doesn’t know about it. say something stupid in front of a love interest, the next one’s blissfully unaware. in our current paradigm, all of them transgressions are with you, forever.

any and all corporations even adjacent to the advertising/harvesting/mining industries have lost the benefit of doubt, forever. our interaction with them is and should be adversarial from the get go. they should never be in the position to retain any meaningful data points and polluting their ingestion avenues and obscuring activity is mandatory.

edit: the AI example is touching on it.

1. I’m trying to be more anti-large corporation, especially those that have bent the knee to Trump.
2. I want to support the people who make replacement apps/services that have a DIY ethic about them.
3. I kind of like the challenge of it, because it’s not all that easy…which in my mind shows that it’s necessary.

If you don’t want to DeGoogle, that’s fine. It’s a personal decision. If you have all the facts and determine you’d rather stay doing what you’re doing, that’s fine.

privacy and political reasons: google has been firing employees that support palestine for fucks sake

source: The Verge

@CheeseToastie Spending my money in autocratic countries is like buying them the weapons they will point at me to take away my freedom.

Giving my data to them is pretty much the same as they monetize it.