[Rant] I hate the modern internet

It is an absolute nightmare, but you can gain some privacy back with ublock origin, an adblocking DNS on your phone, Firefox, a VPN, and ditching all things google/meta. As I type this out, I am reminded how much effort it takes to claw back your privacy...yeah OP, I'm with you, the modern internet is a profit-at-all-cost cesspool that can eat a moldy potato!

Ditching google is the most difficult part, especially when iPhone is so locked down :(
- I’ve primarily been an iphone user over the years and was recently hand me downed an older pixel. Using grapheneOS and firefox, I was surprised to see there were only about a dozen extensions available, good ones, but not all of them like I’d assumed. Then I discovered chrome on android has zero, is that right? I cannot believe that there are so many people that use a mobile browser without an adblocker. On iOS safari, I have dozens of incredible extensions (basically countless through the app store) that make the internet useable again. I’m happy to see safari opening up.
- You can put Google-free Android forks on your phone or tablet. My phone is LinageOS with minimal Google footprint and my tablet has no gapps at all.
  
  I use Gmail, Tasks, Drive and Calendar for the sake of convenience, since I could self-host all of these.
- How so? You can just use an iPhone without running any Google apps on it, right?
It’s sad, 10-15 years ago it was as simple as Adblock :/

Now it’s nearly unavoidable and/or requires quite a few changes to your native device to make it more secure
- Yeah, for all of Jobs' "vision" cell phones were really just a way to profit of of free information.
For mobile adblockers I recommend AdAway: https://github.com/AdAway/AdAway
- Firefox mobile now supports extensions like uBlock Origin, although that only works for the web and not the whole phone.
- Sweet! Just installed. How does it compare to adguard?

There's actually a lot to look forward to. In fact you're talking on one of those reasons right now.

e2ee is only a recent thing which is significantly more private. You can have an entirely private FOSS operating system that has parity with Windows for free.

The privacy and FOSS ecosystems are thriving more then ever. There are more VPN providers then ever before, and Tor gets better and better.

We have decentralized social media like the fedi which gives complete freedom against corporate control.

We have all sorts of amazing FOSS tools out there. We even have an AI that can be run completely locally and with custom unfiltered models that is very close to competitive with ChatGPT, and also free.

None of these things even existed like 10 years ago, or were in their infancy. They're all competitive to modern corporate alternatives. Privacy alternatives are by far in the best state they've ever been, and they'll just continue to improve as the community grows larger.

We can own all these tools and self host. In fact we've never been able to "own" anywhere near as much as we can today.

Thank you for the Hopium
- Thank you, author!
aaand there's intel management engine and amd platform security procesor which undermine your foss efforts on most platforms
- AMD (for that matter, any other processor manufacturer) isn't off the hook either - eg. see "Platform Security Processor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processor
  
  They've been locking processors to individual motherboards and eliminating second-hand resale value for "enterprise" hardware in the name of "security" too: https://www.servethehome.com/amd-psb-vendor-locks-epyc-cpus-for-enhanced-security-at-a-cost/
- If that was our only problem and most people would be using FLOSS software I'd be happy. Intel ME is bad but you can have a "good enough" usage of tech today.
- Why do people want to be doomers over literally nothing. There's so much good that you're just ignoring.
Thanks for providing a positive perspective! It's really important we don't lose sight of the good things.
What is this local ChatGPT alternative you are talking about?
- https://gpt4all.io/index.html

Be more optimistic friend.

Government will continue to do surveillance but they can be constrained by the legal system. Corpos will build ai to sell you bullshit off whatever data they can get on you but you can block their ads and leave their platforms. Encryption is math and can’t be stopped by a law. UK law makers won’t be able to enforce their law even if it’s passed.

It’s cheaper than ever to run your own server, and will continue to get cheaper. Manage your own digital footprint and work towards decentralizing the web. Don’t worry so much about other people, they’ll come around eventually.

This is being made increasingly difficult every day, with huge corporations openly discussing the advantages of killing the open internet as it is today: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/README.md

The endgame seems to be to turn you into a mindless, agency-less zombie slave to these corps with your input being ads delivered to your (sub)conscious, and your output being you mindlessly doing whatever the ad wanted you to do. This is as much psychological -- and social -- divide-and-rule as it is technologically damaging, so even if you don't know (or want) to run your own server, you will end up being affected, fractured and sharded against your own community all the same.

A sample case in point: It is getting more and more difficult to run your own servers when you are forbidden to spend your own money from your own electronic devices to pay for goods and services without being surveilled (and pounded by ads).

Most payment apps rely on device attestation "security", that requires your mobile device be "compliant" to someone else's rules, standards and endgames, to the effect that if you want to change your own bought-and-owned device in a way your ad-masters disapprove, you will be prevented from making payments from your device -- and more significantly thereby, from participating in your community, economy and society unless you bend over to one of many private corporations that want you just as bent and broken as the rest of the people they already have.

This is pure, unadulterated evil at your doorstep, ringing your doorbell.

I know I probably sound far more pessimistic and hopeless than things actually are, but that is better than being asleep at the wheel. I do not wish to rob you of your optimism (I am actually happy that we still have it), but unless we see our world for what it really is today, it will be far more difficult to know and drive what it may become in the future.

Here is another example of how hard some people have worked to turn your own devices against you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo
- Thanks for the video link. Very interesting. This is how all computers will be built eventually. So seize the means of computation until we can...
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
UK law makers won’t be able to enforce their law even if it’s passed.

that said, we should also always remember that unenforceable law is law that can and will be selectively applied. Something they can whip out against people when they don't have anything else.

What happened to the ethos of the original internet cultures that were so dominant. It's like large swaths of that generation grew up and sold out to become the oppressors. And the other portion are being crushed by that system.

Only a small % of people were on the internet then it grew and grew and the new people flocked to new spaces and didn't like the old internet culture because it was quite elitist and toxic.
- You say elitist as if it was a bad thing. As to toxic, 1990s online communities has no comparison with casual baseline hostility everywhere today that is just off the charts. In fact, Lemmy already has enough of it for me to start disliking commenting. This is what almost drove me offline in the last few years.
  
  I'm not sure still care enough to run my own instance and enforce stricter standards. It's all so much work and ultimatively futile.
- Thread closed. Dont insult the community.
  
  Ich bin nicht die Signatur, ich putz hier nur.
I think the end of net neutrality hastened there older internet's demise. now corps are free to monetize as much as they like.
- Yup. When net neutrality died it let a few corporate overlords rise up and kill off much of the old free web. What much of us grew up on was a much fewer, wilder web. One you could still dream on and where you could still think damned near any new thing could come from anyone. Now, you pretty much have to already have $.
Money happened.

The EU is very much hit and miss. I do appreciate them putting Google, Meta, and Apple in their place, and some on the legislation regarding smart phones they have passed. But ultimately they want to have all your data for "security".

Still, I think the situation in the US is a bit worse.

EU policy is so hit and miss because the EU Parliament mostly has our backs, and is introducing good legislation protecting consumers of corpo overreach (like the roaming directive). The EU Commission on the other hand has only the interest of the EU countries' governments in mind, which makes many of its proposals rather shitty of the common citizen. Also tells you a lot about what the actual national governments stand for, when somebody else is doing more for the citizens than they are.
- thank you for that brief explanation, didn't really know the difference between the two branches(is that what they call em?)
Just a little little bit
It's like governments and corporations are competing at control over information flows. In EU bureaucracy wins more often, and in US corpo lobbyists win more often.

Can't say I find this competition healthy...
- It's pretty much the story of Arsenal Gear in Metal Gear Solid 2 lol
  
  Kojima always had a way of seeing into the not so distant future and pretty much nailing it.
Yes, they are unfortunately not as opposed to surveillance by governments as they are by that of megacorporations. While I appreciate that they are trying to keep the likes of Google and Meta in check, I also very much dislike the several attempts to enforce data retention and essentially encryption bans.

That the Data Retention Directive was eventually annulled by the Court of Justice of the European Union gives me some hope that the legal system within EU can withstand these attempts, but maybe I am being too naive? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

This is absolutely not a “this is fine” comment

But the US “intelligence agencies” have been spying on the US and the world for 2 decades now pretty openly. Yes it’s worse that other countries are joining or ramping up spying, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing this is a new development. The evil fuckos who up at the 3 letter agencies and equivalents around the world know where true power resides and they know methods of controlling people. The fact that France is doing this stuff should be a sign to the French (and everyone) that the government fears the people. A government which fears the people demanding that it serve the people is no longer legitimate. If the French ripped apart their shit from the root it would be justified… as an outsider. They’ve done the proper procedure of ask, then demand… now force. But Americans got out shit to sort out which tbh is incredibly more fucked up so I will leave the French alone in that respect

I also recently noticed that everything get's more and more hostile towards the user. I observed so many apps and Websites that have hidden some big features behind a paywall recently - as if they don't already make enough money with data collection and selling. First they make you comfortable with these QoL Stuff and then they steal it away, holding it in front of your face and want you to pay for it now, something that was free for years. It's filthy..

I bought a lifetime license for the Spark email app. I even sent them some extra money when I learned their engineers are in the UK. Then they pushed out an update that removed the feature that caused me to buy their app in the first place, locked half of the other features behind a subscription, and said that since it's an "update", the previous lifetime subscriptions don't count. Mother fuckers! Fuck the Spark team. I uninstalled it, gave them a 1 star review, and installed Fair Email. It's a better app in most ways, is completely free, and is privacy focused. The only thing is that it's missing the one feature I paid for, which was to be able to long press an email, tap "search for all emails by sender", and then bulk action them. It was really useful for bulk deleting all Amazon confirmations and stuff like that.
- I’ve had a couple pieces of software revoke my lifetime licenses when they switched to fully subscription (even though they swore lifetime license holders would be grandfathered). I get needing to make money to pay your software engineers to keep pushing out updates but man I hate this subscription hell we live in now
I get that not everything can be free. I'm more than willing to pay for sites and services that have value to me. But companies constantly selling your data, blasting you with advertisements and then having the gall to ask you to pay for the pleasure? It's blatant rent-seeking.

Yeah, it's incredibly hard to be optimistic about how things are going. Tech used to be one of those things that made me excited about things to come and look forward to the future, but now (with rich AI tech bros ripping off artists and creatives, proof of work harming the environment, people owning and controlling less and less, etc.) it just feels like so many things are pushing us in a bad direction.

On the bright side, things like Linux, FOSS and the Fediverse are examples of good tech, and at least the potential for a future where the people have some agency and ownership over the digital world. I hope that we can continue to grow software in an open and community-based direction, if only so that the niche of geeks who care about computers and the internet can have some way of fighting back against ever-growing tech conglomerates.

I’m concerned about when governments get ahold of usable quantum computers.

We’ll always be one step ahead of the bad guys. Fortunately we have places like this where like-minded people can gather who understand the dangers.

AI has entered the chat

Honestly it's one of my personal reasons for disliking AI. I (let alone most of our kids) don't want or need a reason to think less, let alone own less of my content. FFS.

There are ways around it if you are willing to put in the work and deal with incoveniences.

For example, never use native Android or iOS, flash a custom ROM, never install proprietary apps, just that cuts a lot out. Only use cash for all stores and services, never carry payment cards with you, that wipes out financial tracking. Never give real info to stores. Use email aliases so different people have a different address. Don't use Windows on computer if the prgrams you use are not exclusive to Windows.

Those can be the beginner steps to how to be almost invisible in society. One thing I've done is try to push people onto SimpleX chat app for messaging so I can have a different random ID with each person I message so there's no contact info to share. Even people I know in person, we hang out together, I try to get them on SimpleX in place of Signal.

While I agree with all of that…. One of the biggest issues is employment. For instance through my job I’m forced to use both google and meta services, and I can’t “opt out” or “just don’t install it”. It’s a condition of employment. So of course you can say “just quit your job” but that’s not really viable is it? Over phone apps? And carrying two phones I will never do….. so……
- Don't let your employer use your personal stuff for their needs. If they need you to have a phone for work, then they need to provide that, and you can leave that at work. The same with Alphabet- and Meta-services; that stays on the employers devices, never your own.
- Any job that forces you to use Meta services is probably exploiting you in other ways and isn't worth whatever they're paying you. Even employees of Facebook don't have to do this.
- That is a run off, complete your sentence.

I genuinely believe that this is nothing new. Governments have just learned in the last few years that most of their citizenry don't give a shit about privacy. They're just making it official, so it can be penalized if you openly try to do something about it. I think...

I feel the same doomerism that it just won't be legally possible to own your servers, and it will be that only corpos are trusted by the big governments to operate platforms. I feel like we are in a battle right now and they won't win in the end. I also think it's helpful to watch the various big platforms implode recently, it signals to congress that maybe we can do a better job than facebook. I also feel decentralization is key honestly, if I host my instance in some place that does not really care about these anti encryption laws there is not a ton another nation can do about it, and if it's decentralized it becomes even harder

I suspect to get downvotes into oblivion for this, but there's nothing wrong with the concept of C2PA.

It's basically just Git commit signing, but for images. An organization (user) signs image data (a commit) with their public key, and other users can check that the image provenance (chain of signed commits) exists and the signing key is known to be owned by the organization (the signer's public key is trusted). It does signing of images created using multiple assets (merge commits), too.

All of this is opt-in, and you need a private key. No private key, no signing. You can also strip the provenance by just copying the raw pixels and saving it as a new image (copying the worktree and deleting .git).

A scummy manufacturer could automatically generate keys on a per-user basis and sign the images to "track" the creator, but C2PA doesn't make it any easier than just throwing a field in the EXIF or automatically uploading photos to some government-owned server.

It truly sucks. but seeing decentralized/open-source projects - Lemmy, I2P/TOR, Linux, etc. warms my heart. It helps me see there’s truth out there and pushes me forward down this path.

I feel like I've explored very deep edges of sound alternatives. I've tried replacing my phone with consumer friendly alternatives and they just weren't as good unless you can get a fair phone in the US which is hit or miss. The Internet itself lending itself to subscription based models is because servers and data storage costs money.

I hate to say it, but even if you remove power through solar investments and using lightweight servers you still have ISP to pay. Everyone's got bills and overhead, because nothing is free.

My advice is to ground your logic in that everything requires resources to run and rejoice in community wins like Lemmy or mastodon or Graphene OS. It's not all bad. Find the good in the bad and move towards what works for you personally. I've been off of windows for like a year now and I think that alone is impressive despite Xbox for example costing an arm and a leg.

The internet as we knew it was based on something that doesn't exist anymore.

Back in the '90s the internet was a million small companies all posturing and juggling for position. The great late capitalism push means that everybody needs to make 20% more every year which is completely possible to do when you're tiny.

The advertising fire hose back then was enough to expand small companies year-over-year. The return on investments from some well placed static ads, and then later on YouTube ads was more than enough to oil the gears of commerce.

Now the only thing that's left are the mega corporations, They can't sustainably expand at 20% per year, but they sure do like to buy up those tiny corporations.

Advertising is no longer sufficient, so subscriptions are going to creep in. At some point subscriptions will no longer be sufficient.

Nothing was ever free, we were the product. In the current economic situation we're no longer as profitable a product. Interest rates exist again venture capital is drying up.

At some point everything we use that's not private community funded is going to end up being paid for by both a subscription and advertising

I was honestly kind of hoping more web 3 peer-to-peer stuff would be the final answer but all those projects seems to be fizzling out.
- Yeah agreed. I'm working on a solution but it's going to cost the consumer. According to Zuckerberg the first sin of the Internet was making everything free. If you're doing things in the dapp space it's harder since every person needs a server not just an app in an ideal world.
  
  These monolithic websites have a lot less of an excuse imo since they run on a shared server though.
This is the rub though - so many people think that there is a giant conspiracy to make tech conform to some nefarious capitalism endgame, but in a lot of cases, this shit is legitimately just consumer preference.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of kleptocratic fuckery afoot as well, but there are also plenty of examples of consumers wanting something that actual experts think is dumb or unsafe.

it'll look either

more like where the vikings live
more like where Americans die

There's a reason why I'm structuring a home server build right now, I'm so tired of this internet, I just want to enjoy my things and not feel like an asshole supporting these companies. I don't want to live in a dystopian net, even though we're slowly approaching it. What will I do about private messaging? Who knows, I might have to make my own app to encrypt my messages before sending them through another app.

Combine this with laboratories learning how to literally control pathogens and we could have the distophia of the future

hacking itself into...

If you will take a friendly criticism meant to be helpful? As the ancient philosophers mentioned, you cannot control the world, only yourself. Language such as this is biased and shows that you lack understanding of the phenomena involved. You hate it bc you fear it, maybe, even while you do not know precisely what it is. Like what exactly can they do with a phone once they have access, what are the limits, what are the supposed benefits even, and most important, what are the ways around it, and yet what hidden costs are associated with circumventing it? You seem to feel that you are trapped, that you lack power - and yes, you are and you do, but also... so very much not at the same time!!!

Like for protesting, simply do not take a phone, and instead bring something like a walkie talkie, or even arrange visual cues such as flags, bandanas, a particular style of hat (red = cops are near, whatever), done, problem solved. Spend some time learning about the things you care about, and separate yourself from the "sheep" mentality that expects everything to be spoon-fed to you 100% of the time.

Or else go the other way and lean into it, realizing that using a mobile device is nothing at all like using something you "own", and instead you "rent" your time on the cell tower network, so whoever owns & controls that gets the ultimate say in how they want it done. "Engagement media" aka click bait articles never seem to get around to presenting the full picture of what is happening. Like, you do not control that, and never ever will, but ultimately they do take fairly good care of people. People that do not go to protests even have little to fear, unless one springs up around them, and even then all that happens is...what? You still have full control over your device, except they can also ping it, maybe turn on the camera? (Inside your pocket what will they see or hear?)

Either way, you will be happier once you've resolved your intention of how you want to live your life. Right now you feel the stress of being on the fence, wanting the best of all worlds, but it will take sacrifice and effort to achieve a fraction of what you want, so defining what that even is can be the first step towards achieving your goals. e.g., coming here rather than Reddit should have helped:-). Now, spend time reading to help you define your next actionable step.

It's weird how I've seen several of these kinds of comments on lemmy recently. They're responding to a post that's pointing out an obvious social/political/economic problem by reducing it to the poster having some kind of personal mental health issue or accusng them of being stupid because they don't know enough about the issue to have a degree in it.

I don't think I've ever seen them anywhere else. Maybe they just always got buried on reddit, idk. But it's an interesting redirection that's a) super unproductive, and b) trying really hard to take focus off a very real social issue. "Your late stage capitalist country quickly descending into fascism? Have you considered Wellbutrin?"
- Your comment falls prey to a binary fallacy, aka false dilemma. It is possible for both to be true at the same time. The immediate issue is that OP feels bad. The is indicated by the very first words in the very first sentence, as well as the start of pretty much every single sentence after it:
  
  I am fucking scared of the ... nightmare ... Im also sick of and hate the ... I dont wanna know how...
  
  So instead of assuming that I had not heard any of this from OP, and was responding to part (the major aspect imho) of what they said, you instead flew off on a tangent, assumed that I had missed all the emotional language entirely, and redirected (ironically, exactly what you accused me of, it is amazing how often that occurs) into how I somehow do not believe that privacy violations so much as exist anywhere in the world... really? I suggest that you reexamine your premise. But do as you please, ofc.
  
  For the record, I never used words remotely close to "stupid" (in my mind I was envisioning things like "take charge of your destiny!"), I never suggested that OP take drugs to escape/deal with the pressures of life, nor did I offer thoughts of suicide, I never accused them of personal health problems, nor did I mitigate the seriousness of the situation, etc. Instead, I offered practical solutions for REAL-WORLD issues, and advice on how OP can reclaim their sanity.
  
  Maybe you simply blocked anyone that ever disagreed with you on Reddit? Or else your mod did that for you in all of your "safe spaces". Feel free to block me too btw - I think we would both benefit from that actually, if this is how conversations with you would go in the future.:-)
  
  My view of this conversation, fwiw:
  
  OP: Lions exist and keep eating people!
  
  Me: Have you thought about carrying a gun with you whenever you go out into the jungle... or just do not go there anymore?
  
  You: Stop bullying OP, you big poopy-pants meanie!!:-(
  
  (Also, speaking of redirecting the conversation, I see that you offered no advice to OP of your own so... yes actually, it is odd, weird even, how I have seen several of these kinds of comments on lemmy recently, responding to a post that talks about real issues with severe social/political/economic ramifications by reducing the commenter to having somehow ignored the OP and being extremely unproductive in their response, while simultaneously offering nothing productive of their own, thus taking the issue off on that weird tangent - I really wish people would stop doing that, you know what I mean!?)
- Its not downplaying the problem it's offering a philoshopical solution to the anguish.
  
  Op will destroy himself before he destroys the system. So he shouldn't expect to destroy the system. Take a step back and realize what you can change and what you can't.
  
  When I got interested in privacy it was genuinely overwhelming it felt like I had to upend my entire life which seemed impossible. So I stepped back and thought about what I could change. I started making small changes here and then doing only what I was comfortable with. After a year I'm almost off Google services and I've migrated off all big tech platforms except discord. I'm securing my home network and reeling in my email and cc usage online.
  
  The world seems scary but I can feel myself getting away from the things I don't like. I can sleep knowing I'm doing what I can.

I'm sorry to be that guy, but it's the "natural" way things have to go in order to preserve (modern) society.

I'm from Chile for example, and here we literally CRAVE for a mass surveilence solution in order to prevent crime (i've gotten robbed 3 times in the last year and i don't even live in the capital). And that's even nothing compared to the situation our neighbour countries have to deal with (mostly corruption and drug gangs ruining everything).

If you want to live a more peaceful and calm life, that's totally okay. But it is probably better that YOU looked into a new place to live (a house by the beach or the woods perhaps?) rather than expecting society to adapt to your needs.

Edit: Added the word "modern".

Have you thought that maybe eradicating social inequality, preventing people from getting desperate and committing crimes, as well as a better funding in education would be less effective than mass surveillance?
- That has been our current goverment's main goal and i think they've done great advances on that regard.
  
  However, it is very difficult to reach people who are already well into a life of crime, not mentioning that a big deal of criminals in the country are inmigrants, (i don't have anything against inmigration, no matter their place of origin, just to be clear) but it makes it a lot harder to help them due to their irregular situation.
If you want to live a more peaceful and safe life, that's totally okay, but it's probably better that YOU looked into a new place to live rather than expecting society to adapt to your needs.
You probably don't deserve the downvotes for having spoken your mind, but you might want to be careful of what you wish for. My heart goes out to you for having to face the realities of your own life and conditions, but there is no silver bullet and no utopia to be had until some people are drawn to screw over others for whatever diminishing advantage they derive from their actions, while offloading ("externalizing") the actual costs onto others and onto society at large.

I can see why you'd consider an all-powerful surveillance state as an option in your specific situation -- but as a thought experiment on the same lines, would you consider moving to say China -- where your wishes of total surveillance and absolute power are being implemented to the fullest extent possible -- also, arguably to "preserve its society"? It has all the pulls of big city life...

Sadly, China itself is very likely on the path of forced breeding of its subjects to stabilize its population statistics (not its social fabric), from all the power and control they possess over their people, and from all the surveillance big data and analysis they've built for themselves. Would you want to be that unfortunate, unwilling parent, or even more unfortunate, that unwanted child, where your every step, every thought is logged and analyzed by machines, leading to actions and consequences pre-determined by a handful of all-powerful rulers?

This is probably the most extreme example there is, but all I'm saying is be careful of what you wish for...
- Thanks for your answer.
  
  Well, i do definetly not plan on eventually moving to somewhere like China mostly beacuse of the strict (and abusive) restrictions and censorship that take place there.
  
  As for the security aspect, i'm all for it 👍
  
  Now, you did mention parenthood and...
  
  For me i believe it wouldn't be an issues since i DO plan on having children in the future.
  
  But that's just MY case i'm talking about.
  
  Of course that it would be abusive to restrict your freedom in exchange for security without your consent. (And even more so, to take away your vote for deciding who's in charge of the country for the next period, or worse, an undetermined period of time). AKA Dictatorship
  
  And it is absolutely cruel to force people (specially women) to have children if they don't want to.