 What has been on my mind today: the high costs of digital sovereignty and privacy. I quit #Substack and pay 30€ a month for a Creator plan on #Ghost (approx. 360 Euros a year). I quit Dropbox in favor of #Proton Unlimited (drive but also mail, calendar. VPN). 119 Euros/year. I nuked my Google Analytics accounts in favor of #Plausible (90 Euros/year). I'm HAPPY to pay for these services & yet I'm highly aware of my privilege. #BigTech won't fade in popularity anytime soon bc it's free 😩 23 comments
 @_elena Exactly. Not even talking about that other option to "just click yourself a server somewhere and run infrastructure on your own" which will amount to similar bills if done at a comparable level and/or take much more time one needs to be able to have at hand. It's a nasty problem that seems hard to fix on an individual level as it always requires being privileged in this way or the other - like, also, buying organic food or fair-trade clothes. It's disheartening once you dig deeper. 😟
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10 December at 14:54 | Open on loma.ml
@_elena interesting, if its not a "professional" endeavour then I fail to see why someone would select SubStack/Ghost over a more useful option like micro.blog, which would give the option of blog/microblog/podcast/fediverse integration and a much lower monthly cost … likewise for such a user I think analytics is an unnecessary cul-de-sac, but there are free solutions if you require … @craigmorgan I am happy to pay Ghost for its newsletter functionality. Sadly no self-hosting plan gives free newsletter capabilities. And Ghost is fast, beautiful and reliable. I self-host and federated 3 Wordpress sites and I love the advanced styling options of Wordpress. I have been designing / developing WP sites for over 15 years. Manton's micro.blog is superb but I have different needs / requirements  @bovaz yeah. Reading "Privacy is Power" has been really eye-opening. There will be no regulation anytime soon because governments reap enormous benefits from surveillance capitalism (powered by Big Tech) @_elena [quote#BigTech won't fade in popularity anytime soon bc it's free 😩[/quote]
Well, Bigtech itsn't free! You only don't pay with fiduciary money, but with your data! 😪 @_elena Yep, it goes fast, unless you self-host (but more complex too). I ddn't know about Plausible! That looks like a great solution for analytics. Thanks for the tip :) @nrdufour Adding to that, unsure if it passed by here: tinylytics.app/ also might be interesting to look into, for privacy-preserving, lightweight analytics. It's a bit cheaper than plausible but also offers less features, still might be an alternative to keep in mind then and now. 🙂
@_elena  @jandi I wasn't familiar with it. Two people mentioned @Framasoft in replies, so looking into it now. Thank you!  @_elena And selfhosting is way cheaper than all of that... but it not only still costs a bit of money, it's ALSO a brand new hobby not everyone needs. @_elena Yeah, I see few people recognize the financial barrier to privacy. The common response to this is "it's not free because you're paying with data/being advertised to/etc." I think that misses the nuance that groceries can't be paid for with data. People will always choose to eat and lose privacy, as opposed to pay for privacy and starve. @lgre excellent point. BTW if you haven't read it already, you would love the book "Privacy is Power" by Carissa Véliz  @_elena Appreciate this post. Its always difficult to explain that nothing is for free and that people pay with their data. And that it is in most cases a bad deal. It is time time to take the lead and pay for soveregnity.  @_elena @Nina_cried wow. Really eye-opening. I'm reading "Privacy is Power" right now and I'm super fired up about these issues. We need more awareness |
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