Comment by WhackyIdeas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WhackyIdeas | Hacker News Reader

After what happened with Adobe, Microsoft and Sonos this past week, I have decided to try limit my use of American products. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA - I have tonnes of family there and I have met some super nice people on my months long holidays there too…

But.

There is just too much poison coming out of Silicon Valley in my view. Awful choices in pursuit of our personal information, ‘Recall’ demonstrates how Silicon Vally is sick in their pursuit of trying to get even more stinking rich.

So yeah, I decided to try to remove as many American products and services from my life. It’s going to be tough. I have invested 5 digits in Apple tech over the past couple of years. It’s all to be sold now.

Switched Microsoft for Linux and OpenBSD, and I have a lot more tech to get rid of.

I know this sounds extreme, but I don’t want to fund these companies. I am partly responsible for funding then as it is, and I am out now.

Real. I am a long term Linux user (first downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem - you can ask your grandparents what that is) and in principle I would like to do what you have done, basically do a “100% Richard Stallman” but my productivity is higher when using specific tools on macOS/iPadOS/iOS.

I fight back a bit by leaving my iPhone at home unless I want to take pictures. Instead my Apple Watch is my main driver when I am out in the world. It is fairly unobtrusive, in spite of the mountain of distributed tech behind it.

BTW, I don’t think you sound extreme at all. After reading good books like Privacy is Power and The Surveillance Capitalism, you approach sounds real to me.

I remember my Grandad ranting about the wonders of the 5600K modem back in the day. He introduced me to Doom back in ‘96, then showed me BASIC in ‘98. Without him, I’d have never have got into computing. So I bet he knows the 2400 baud modem well.

I used to be Google’s biggest fan boy once upon a time. I thought they were the bees knees, then 2006 came and they began using email content for targeted ads (this was when I used googlemail) and I knew they turned bad.

Every American tech company gets corrupted in the end eh.

It's called late stage capitalism and the scary thing is I think we still have a way to go. Check out the explosion of PE into our healthcare system recently if you really want to feel some goosebumps.

Wait a minute, why being a private equity for some healthcare institutes is bad?

Healthcare should be run by the government, PE is about as far away from that ideal as possible. Profit motives should rarely (if ever) mix with healthcare

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