Whoops, I Deleted My Life

The moment gmail asked me to "verify" my account and that only using one of the massively grotesque and absurd vanguard/blackrock web engines (including their SDKs) out there (I could log and use gmail with a noscript/basic (x)html browsers as tons of internet services should), I became self-hosted.

But this is not enough. This has to go to regulation/court. They are extinguishing all alternatives (usually, making interop technically a real pain): oligarchy of compuserves. Those are nasty ppl, really nasty, expect rough times.

"if Apple hadn’t already ransacked my pockets for subscription fees to maintain my ever-expanding photo archive, and to insure and finance “care” for my ever more expensive assortment of its products; if Microsoft hadn’t insisted that I subscribe to its word-processing software; if so many talented, enterprising friends and acquaintances didn’t now depend on Substack and Patreon donations; if I didn’t have to rent my music library from Spotify instead of owning my own records; if I didn’t have to fork over Prime fees to Amazon for my packages and to watch professional tennis; if I hadn’t been obliged to maintain Netflix, Canal+, and AppleTV accounts so that my children would sit quietly on airplanes; if Elon Musk hadn’t promised to render my tweets invisible if I didn’t pay him in monthly $8 installments. By the time those damn Gmail requests became unignorable, I had long since reached the point of peak micropayments. I was drowning in subscriptions."

Really agree with the sentiment but then I also wonder why the author didn't just download an archive/takeout before deleting the inbox.