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tante

Giving Fairphone shit because while trying to build a long-term viable, sustainable and socially and economically fairer device they also think about the people in the real fucking world who are supposed to use them and offer them the software most of them rely on (like Google Apps) is more toxic purism than I can stand.

People who are willing to suffer in their life by using something different, something slightly incompatible to what the rest of the world uses already do install roms and run whatever on their machines.

Getting real actual people to buy a phone that's not built to be thrown away in a year of two, that highlights the values of sustainability is a huge win.

And making the medicine ("your phone might not be as fancy as your peers' phones") taste sweeter ("for 8 years you have access to all the applications you need for your life to function within a digital society") is just a smart move.

36 comments
tante

(And the term #surveillance #capitalism is as short-sighted as the book that it comes from. Criticizing "surveillance capitalism" implies that there are better forms but every issue that Zuboff's book points out directly stems from capitalism itself. It's just about the big C, the "surveillance" prefix is just a veil to make things less clear.

[Additional theory: It's a very anti Google/Meta thing which is why a lot of the people pushing that term end up being very vocal Apple supporters])

Christian Willmes

@tante You do see, that you do defend toxic tech silos with this kind of rethoric? May I add, proprietory silos like Apple iOS and lesser so Google Android are indeed capitalist/conservertaive/neo-liberal/politically right-wing tech models. I get that people are lazy and do not want to take up this fight and problems that come with it. But that you give someone, like fairphone, who does take up this fight (for you also) "shit" is just plain bad.

Ponder Stibbons 🇧🇷🇩🇪

@cwillmes
Imho he doesn't and here is why: it is natural behaviour to avoid pain or inconvenient things in life. Unfortunately getting rid of something like the google suite is pain, costs money, time and willingness for a lot of trial and error with quirky behaviour in webdav space.
It is my job to do such things and I can do it for my family but would not recommend it for someone on their own.
@tante

Ponder Stibbons 🇧🇷🇩🇪

@cwillmes
OSS and in general non-corpo tools have to get more usable for jane and joe average. "Just works" is a feature and that comes with a price: ditching feature creep for feature polish. A lot of projects are not willing to do that. I am eager- and anxiously looking towards KDE Plasma 6 and wonder if it will be a pita like the transition from 3 to 4 and from 4 to 5. I am willing to deal with this shit since I use it since 1997...
@tante

Christian Willmes

@blackcoffeerider @tante I get it. And of course this will be a pita! But look, Fairphone has <100 employees, while Google has literally thousands of programers.

Ponder Stibbons 🇧🇷🇩🇪

@cwillmes
Yes indeed but here is what bugs me a bit like
@tante :
These 100 fairphone employees should only have to worry about the technical platform and drivers. They should not be held responsible that every calendar/todo/notes/filesync app on fdroid is only functional as far as the main developers see fit who flip everyone of asking for proper support of "standard feature X defined in webdav since 2003" with "only morons need that".

🔸Daniele Turra🔸

@blackcoffeerider @cwillmes @tante mmm, isn't at this point a matter of how developers can actually create standardized ways to handle data and interact between their applications?

eichkat3r

@tante i don't know where this is coming from

since fairphone actually sells their devices with pre installed eOS for a slightly higher price which i find is pretty nice

golem.de/news/alternatives-and

Hawkwinter

@eichkat3r @tante

I think he's commenting on others complaining that theres a version on offer with googles play store and other stuff that is bad for privacy but that many customers would expect to have available.

tante

@Hawkwinter @eichkat3r Exactly. Specifically a well-known privacy activist.

Hawkwinter

@tante @eichkat3r

Okay. Yeah I saw that thread. Didnt know if there was more people also talking about it.

I don't know the economic situation of the fairphone company. But if they couldnt stay in business selling all de-googled phones, they'd accomplish less in nonexistence than selling ethical hardware with either google spyware OS or another at customer's choice.

Botiplz :spezi:

@eichkat3r @tante they already confirmed that /e/OS is available for the 5 aswell

tante

If your job is working on open source and you don't need all the stuff that Google etc provide, awesome. I get it, running only free stuff is really cool, I do it myself. For me.

But that's based on my skills, the things. I care about. It's kind of my hobby so to speak and it oftentimes means that I have to dick around with wonky solutions. Which *I* am okay with.

But demanding that of real people in the world? People who just need a simple thing to do a shared spreadsheet for some gift for a nursery school teacher leaving should have the whole "Let's use Glorp!" - "No Glorp is run by a transphobe. Maybe Snoot?" - "Snoot is to hard to run, because it demands an old version of Zonk" - "Could we set up a mailing list?" dance? Get fucking real.

If your job is working on open source and you don't need all the stuff that Google etc provide, awesome. I get it, running only free stuff is really cool, I do it myself. For me.

But that's based on my skills, the things. I care about. It's kind of my hobby so to speak and it oftentimes means that I have to dick around with wonky solutions. Which *I* am okay with.

emilygorcenski

@tante Facebook’s biggest strength is its events system, which is unmatched before or since.

Even in the enterprise world the #1 piece of software I have to beat isn’t Snowflake or Oracle or AWS.

It’s Excel.

Simple, widespread beats everything. Supporting simple doesn’t mean supporting big tech.

🔸Daniele Turra🔸

@emilygorcenski @tante events system? You mean as a calendar? @mobilizon is trying something similar, just like @gancio, but I think there might be something else more needed, especially in terms of adoption. These two alternatives are also ActivityPub compatible and are perfect for local events. But users expect to find everything in one place, I guess?

Stephen Farrugia

@tante this is kind of the essence of why I’m so critical of UX posturing

Christian Willmes

@tante Who demands that? This brings the wrong spin into it... of course its not easy... someone who do not want to fight (work on their tech skills to be sovereign enough to be able to use this complicated shit) should maybe not use this complicated shit then... but we can help people get educated so they maybe can do it and make the open/good/"communist"/progressive left tech more accessible....

Esther is looking for a server

@tante and often, especially for these low-stakes tasks like organizing a picnic or whatever, if not using corporate-controlled tools is important enough to put in some effort, a non-tech solution might have a lower barrier for most people after all. “Give this person a call or email them, they’ll take care of it” is remarkably accessible and flexible

Linus Hagemann

@tante This is probably more of a tangent, but:

>Getting real actual people to buy a phone that's not built to be thrown away in a year of two, that highlights the values of sustainability is a huge win.

Is the phones being built that way actually the problem? I do not want to throw shade, genuinely curios.
Are these lower-medium price Samsung/Huawei phones or what are the problematic devices here? iPhones seem to last quite a while and while I know that the availability of security updates is an issue for a lot of phones - I doubt that people are super concerned about that? Probably less than they should...

@tante This is probably more of a tangent, but:

>Getting real actual people to buy a phone that's not built to be thrown away in a year of two, that highlights the values of sustainability is a huge win.

Is the phones being built that way actually the problem? I do not want to throw shade, genuinely curios.
Are these lower-medium price Samsung/Huawei phones or what are the problematic devices here? iPhones seem to last quite a while and while I know that the availability of security updates is an...

hirnsushi watching the sunset

@tante It's this debate again, huh 🙄

Every few months someone starts that same discussion on the FP forum, again and again, it's sooo fucking tiring.

FOSS purists have enough options, Fairphone has been very supportive when it comes to custom ROMs. There's not only /e/OS, the FP4 can be bought with iodéOS as well. CalyxOS, DivestOS, LOS all work great, but some people need the default to be what they want, because can't have regular people use the phone as well I guess … :Blobhaj_Sad_Reach:

Now giving FP shit because their QA sucks (can't use my FP4 in the sun right now, in summer) and the security releases constantly being about a month behind schedule, that I'm all for.

@tante It's this debate again, huh 🙄

Every few months someone starts that same discussion on the FP forum, again and again, it's sooo fucking tiring.

FOSS purists have enough options, Fairphone has been very supportive when it comes to custom ROMs. There's not only /e/OS, the FP4 can be bought with iodéOS as well. CalyxOS, DivestOS, LOS all work great, but some people need the default to be what they want, because can't have regular people use the phone as well I guess … :Blobhaj_Sad_Reach:

THiNKTaNK🇺🇦🇹🇼🇪🇹🇭🇹☪

@tante Sometimes, my friend:

You have to laugh at sticklers🔴rb.gy/ec23a

As a #Twitter refugee, intolerance on #Mastodon cracks me up. #Smartphone addicts turned Thought Police lecturing #Tech minimalists on tracking😋bit.ly/3itE0du

📌Do your good work, mind your #Health & #Productivity; Leave antisocial #Media to the toxic & entitled🟢social.vivaldi.net/@B2Spirit/1

#SocialMedia #USA #TimeManagement #Fediverse #Psychology #News #Fairphone #Security #Europe #Politics #MentalHealth

@tante Sometimes, my friend:

You have to laugh at sticklers🔴rb.gy/ec23a

As a #Twitter refugee, intolerance on #Mastodon cracks me up. #Smartphone addicts turned Thought Police lecturing #Tech minimalists on tracking😋bit.ly/3itE0du

📌Do your good work, mind your #Health & #Productivity; Leave antisocial #Media to the toxic & entitled🟢social.vivaldi.net/@B2Spirit/1

AlexanderMars

@tante I really love Fairphone’s intentions, they put it into practice, walking the walk. For the privacy minded the unfortunately named /e/ OS(seriously) is an option, idk if it’s available on the 5, but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. Taking fairphone to task over a vanilla android install is performative outrage and a missed opportunity to educate. Ditching the headphone jack however leaves me completely nonplussed, so I still won’t be buying one.

Kristoffer 🍄

@tante Funny how nothing is as triggering as people who won’t compromise on their ideals

steakfrite

@tante My reaction to the news was : "Oh cool, I'm gonna wait until it's supported by my custom ROM to buy it !" Not "fuck FP for giving people stock android instead of debian on arm with plasma mobile 😠" lol

Wren Reilly

@tante I had a Jolla phone and was happy with it aside from the fact that I couldn’t use Signal. If you don’t care about the networks your friends, family, and coworkers use, you can be a purist.

I can put a ROM without nasty nasty evil Googles on a phone. What I can’t do is make the damned thing smaller. That’s the thing I will give Fairphone shit about. Phones are too damned big. Make a smaller phone and more people would buy it and use it longer.

Wilfried Klaebe

Smaller? What? I want a phone that's thicker so it's more physically stable, doesn't bend as easily! Use the volume to a) avoid camera bumps and b) include more battery capacity, so it holds longer than a day despite heavily using Element...
@akareilly @tante

Wren Reilly

@wonka @tante Not thinner. Smaller, generally used to describe a smaller screen size. Chunky is fine.

Blaze "wertercatt" Marshall

@tante This is my take too. And it's not like there aren't options for degoogling a Fairphone, I'm planning on installing CalyxOS when I get mine and it's great to have that choice. But it's also great to have the choice to use normal Google Android if that's what people need. It's like being pissed that you can install Microsoft Windows on a Framework laptop, it's just an option you can pick if it works for you.

Simon 🥧 man 🥥🌴 🇺🇸

@tante I wish the Ubuntu project for phones (and other devices) had been successful. Quite apart from the software and apps just having a good enough sustainable (both business and environmentally speaking) hardware platform would be huge win. If you look at what % of all phone users are on the latest flagship ~ $1000 a pop phones I'll bet its < 10%. The rest of us can use something like Fairphone. And if it's a hardware spec then like "the PC" it can be cloned and mass produced.

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