The comments are fair. My post was quick and lacked details as I was frustrated in the ever increasing enshitification of the web.

What I meant to convey, from my personal experience, is that it seemed hard to get off of platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Prime, Alexa, Ring, Google Photos, etc. but then I did it and didn’t miss them. These small moves by a lot of people, I believe, can still make a difference. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Do I still use some services? Of course, I have Gmail and WhatsApp, and use a lot of Apple products. When I can, I choose intentionally what I use since there’s no perfect companies out there, but there are “better” ones (whatever that may be in one’s opinion). I chose cloudflare for hosting and Anthropic for vibe coding. Allowing people to use existing login info versus exposing them to more risk with self managed auth was a choice I made. There are tons of choices we make every day so trying to be more intentional is a good start.

Nobody is perfect, but we can try to improve each day in these choices we make.

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better.

I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a clear, binding mission not to exploit the data, not to sell or be funded by investors who expect it to, etc. We have the power to build more than ever. We should use it.

A chant synchronization app for large protests and events https://wordsunite.us

This is one of the reasons I’m so glad Anthropic (at least for now) is positioning itself away from ads in chats as a monetization strategy. It was so nice to see a company shifting AWAY from the enshitification of products. I’m disheartened to see the recent stumbles by Apple, this Taboola association just seems so sketchy. It’s quite a jarring juxtaposition when you see those types of ads next to important stories. Even on other news sites. I just don’t get it. I mean, I get it from they “hey more money for shareholders” angle, but not from a “this is worth cheapening our brand, making our products worse and not caring about what users/customers actually want” angle.

I haven’t been burned yet, but I’ll keep that in mind!