The first thing I do when I reinstall macOS is to disable most of the ”features”, services, and apps Apple added over the last decade. I can’t imagine how cluttered my digital life would be if I’d depend on all those useless toys Apple stuffed into the OS and abandons a few years later (looking at you, Dashboard).
My initial wish for Apple was to make macOS as bulletproof, lightweight, and bug-free as possible. But now I just want to use Linux on my M1 MacBook because of all the bullshit that’s going on in the US right now. It’s only a matter of time until the Trump administration will start to dismantle the American technology sector, beginning with the softening of encryption and the death of Advanced Data Protection I currently rely on on iCloud. Mark my words.
Like I’ve said in a couple of comments before in other threads, I’d love to switch to Asahi but without native disk encryption I just can’t. If my laptop gets stolen, all my files would be visible to the thief, and that’s a risk I’m not willing to make.
Could that become a problem with any electronic product made by US companies? If their government demands Apple, Google & Co. to remotely brick computers, phones, and tablets for whatever reason, why should I bother buying them in the first place?
I’d love to install Fedora Asahi Remix on my MacBook but without built-in disk encryption the whole operating system is unfortunately quite useless for me.
Many US companies operate via subsidiaries and manufacture their products in Asia. But that doesn’t matter if the main business is based in the US. The current US government, its seemingly random tariffs, and their plans to cut their country off the rest of the world make it hard for me to invest my money and energy into products from the US if I’m not sure if in a year from now I still will get support for them as a customer from Europe.
I’m with you on this one. I’d be fine with Apple opening up their ecosystem in a safe and careful way to other companies but only if the security stays, at least, at the same level - and if I’m able to turn off these options in the settings.
Hot take: If the US and EU secret services stop sharing any intel with each other, wouldn’t it be smarter for Europeans to use American services now more than ever? Because even if they’ll get their hands on your nudes, tax docs, or pirated movies, what could they even do with it? If you use an European company on the other hand and some local government wants to fuck you up, it’s much more easier to get their dirty hands onto you, your family, and your friends.
Every failure of once-famous Web 2.0 platforms proves that websites are products of their time - temporary and ultimately irrelevant. Each generation has its own favorite services, apps, and channels, all destined to fade away. Some collapse due to mismanagement, enshittification, bad design choices, censorship, or simply because users move on. Digg is as much a relic of the past as MySpace, and no amount of money, marketing, or exaggerated "superpowers" can change that - especially when they're partnering with a platform that is itself dying a slow, painful death.
Okay, so that means the US is gonna force Apple to disable Advanced Data Protection too. And soon also Germany wants to start mass surveillance [1]. Privacy is dead, the future looks bleak.
Thank you. My first two steps will be to switch over my computer from macOS to Asahi Fedora Remix and make myself comfortable with finding alternatives to the iCloud service, maybe an encrypted NextCloud hosted on some non-US server provider. I know that Fedora is also US-based but it's the best Linux distro that's currently available for Macs and as soon as i'm getting used to the OS I'll be able to look for other distros and hardware.
Thank you for your real-life insights and recommendations. I’ll consolidate your points one by one. My main challenge is balancing independence with mobility, especially if my lifestyle changes drastically. For example, relying on a homelab wouldn’t be feasible for me. Instead, I prefer to depend on a single laptop and phone while keeping everything else in the cloud. But I’ll check out all the options, thanks.
Thanks for the list. It's really sad for me that Fedora is in the "stay away" section because the Asahi version of it probably would be the best one for my MacBook.
I remember installing OpenSuse on my PC from a random magazine CD over 20 years ago. Back to square one I guess. But how exactly would choosing a European-based Linux distro be better than a US-based one in the event of a Transatlantic war?
I've backed up my personal files. But they lie on a with macOS encrypted and APFS formatted hard drive. So even if I have backups I have to make sure that they are encrypted but also readable by all operating systems...
It’s fascinating to see people developing operating systems for a post-apocalyptic world. I’m not that pessimistic - yet. I just don’t want to wake up one day to some random pop-up saying all my data and software are gone because I trusted companies one the wrong side of the globe for too long.
I love the Internet Archive in its current form, but let’s assume that a court rules it can’t operate as it does now. Why couldn’t it adopt a system similar to YouTube’s ownership claim? For example, if the Internet Archive hosts a song owned by Universal, the company could claim ownership of that song and receive a share of the revenue each time it's streamed. To help cover costs, the Internet Archive could introduce a paid plan, like YouTube Premium, for 10 bucks a month. While this might not be the perfect solution, it would at least be better than a world without the Internet Archive.
Social media was doomed the moment its users were demoted from customers to exploitable sources of data. Bluesky will inevitably follow the same path of enshittification as every other social network before it. Its current success hinges solely on the nostalgic desire for a single platform where people can gather in peace. The real question is: How many cycles of doom will people endure before they finally stop jumping from one sinking ship to another?
I do think Apple would comply with either administration, but Trump might change the laws enough to make it harder for Apple to protect its system integrity.
The problem is that I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes at American tech companies or how secure their systems truly are from their own state agencies. Can I safely upload furry porn and torrented anime to my (by Apple encrypted) iCloud Drive without worrying that it might be used against me in the future? How much does the Trump administration seek to tighten control over people compared to the Biden administration? At what point is it wiser to sacrifice convenience, time, and appealing design for (presumably) safer but more labor-intensive software?
Also, thank you for complimenting my blog. I love hearing (or in this case reading) comments like that because it’s exactly what I aim for: writing as a human for other humans who might find something of interest in my thoughts on both important and (mostly) less important things.
I would argue that Apple had an easier time defending its system against government surveillance under the Biden administration than it might under the next one, depending on how far Trump’s team extends their vision of control.
I already have this activated, but the issue is that you still essentially have to trust Apple that their encryption is as robust as advertised and that there’s no secret backdoor the next government could misuse.
I hope Matt gets the psychological help he needs. However, the fact that people like Nicholas Garofalo are enabling his behavior through proxy blog posts like this, instead of helping him realize that, even if he was right at one point, he went completely off the rails somewhere along the way, will only make his upcoming reality check that much harsher. Good luck, Matt. Really.
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