I Cut the 'Big Five' Tech Giants from My Life. It Was Hell (2019)

Most of this difficulty seems to arise from the fact he would block a website just because they used a AWS/Google backend, instead of simply just stop having a Google/Facebook etc. account. The latter is relatively simple to do, the former is nearly impossible (as it is seen in the article).

Actually, for IT guys, there's a lot of subsitution self-hosted products and docker images, ready to be deployed on independant VPS. But it's obviously not mainstream or end-user friendly...

> He usually starts the class by asking people if they know when their phones are communicating with cell towers. “Most people say, ‘When I use it,’ but the answer is, ‘anytime it’s on,’” he says.

is it using so much power when "off" the above isn't believable :P

> Critics of the big tech companies are often told, “If you don’t like the company, don’t use its products.” I did this experiment to find out if that is possible, and I found out that it’s not—with the exception of Apple.

I liked the article, but a few things rubbed me the wrong way.

She said she stopped using Signal because the service was hosted on AWS, and that she didn’t want to use Apple products.

If a service is hosted on a large hosting company or a small one, it doesn’t seem to matter. Also, Apple is probably the best large company for protecting our privacy.

I liked the phrase “I am a digital vegan and a real one” (or something like that). ‘Digital vegan’ is an interesting expression.