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The world is trying to log off U.S. tech (restofworld.org)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Countries are growing uneasy about their dependence on U.S. technology firms.

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[–] 52 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I ended five subscriptions to US tech services over the weekend, and I'm working steadily down my list.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    So are you moving to other subscriptions, based in another country, that are also at the whim of other corporations?

    I think it's time more people learn how to self-host what's important to them. At least make sure to keep multiple backups of all of your media.

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  • [–] 24 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    The problem isn't necessarily corporate services - the problem is corporate services with no practical competition. If there's an actual marketplace, then enshittification is limited, because you can just hop providers when service degrades. If there's an actual marketplace, then you can hop providers when some government takes control your provider.

    Putting fun services behind the wall of 'you must be this technically competent to participate' isn't going to fix the broken system.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago

    Could be a great time for small services and modular subscriptions (e.g. block stores or MTAs). I wouldn't trust many small VPS' to host an organisation, but it is fine for me personally.

    Hopefully enough stable income exists to grow a cottage industry of small infra and protocols lower the barrier to entry/migration.

    I would pay for access to an artisanal data center of the finest organic hosts, tenderly shepherded by third generation sysadmins.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    I agree in principle. I know how to self-host, and I do self-host some things, but I can't always afford the upfront investment (especially with today's hardware costs) and I don't always have time to keep up with the administration (because I'm a wage slave) so I end up renting some of it. I'm not the only one in this position.

    I think there's a place for rented tech services just as there's a place for rented housing, but the problem in both cases is regulatory capture by landlords that mean we get stuck renting forever from exploiters. (And with tech there's the surveillance too, so they're the landlord that puts a secret camera in your bedroom.) So anyway, I'm trying to at least pick my tech landlords more carefully until I can afford a better solution, and as far as possible I try to make sure my stuff is encrypted before they see it.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    that's why I believe that in a normal world, renting should only be needed for temporary hardware. a temporary home, a temporary vehicle, a temporary server, temporary storage..

    but with homeservers you could have your own once you can afford it, and you could request help from contractors for the urgent type of maintenance. replacing failing disks in the array, minimal monitoring so that they can keep an eye on when that happens, maybe critical updates..

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