Is it worth it to avoid google etc.?

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I am a bit confounded with all the wrongs the big tech corporations do and I am interested in input from others.

Do you think it is worth the effort to maximize avoiding Google for example? There are so many aspects: privacy, attention, democracy, freedom… And I am all for trying to lead a decent, responsible, as ethical as I can afford life.

I don’t use facebook. I’ve been on and off but ultimately the storm of ads disgusted me and made me stay away.

But what about google? I don’t use it much, even for email, but I’ve recently been thinking whether I am wasting time using ddg, qwant, Posteo and a mail client, and Nextcloud, and WebDAV and CalDAV at ownCube etc. It’s not much if you have some experience with GNU/Linux but, still, there is always a constant, be it small, level of maintenance in the background. And I have some life stuff to do too.

Recently my online grocery shop introduced a possibility to use google assistant to shop there. I am so curious about it! But should I use this Google assistant data collecting eavesdropping wiretap app?

Is it even a realistic problem that there is serious data collection going? Is it a real risk that a government or a shady organization will use that data against me? I live in Europe but all sorts of weird things are happening nowadays (and I am from Poland, having liberal and anti-government views).

Are all those apps and services a serious threat to my well being, to my attention span? I practice science so focus is important to me.

Does Tristan Harris use gmail? :smiley:

I’ve been considering recently just going with it and focusing on my life stuff and academia and stopping to care about what might happen if the corporations abuse the data somehow.

But, then, aren’t they doing it already, manipulating unaware people. Maybe me and I’m unaware? Maybe they successfully implanted FOMO in me and now I have to ask around if it’s worth it to go google again?

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For me, it’s worth it for my piece of mind. Not for privacy reasons, but because Google is a poorly managed business with unsustainable cash flow.

Just because a company has high revenue doesn’t mean it will always stay that way or that the business is managed well.

Go to this site and you’ll see over 300 products that were at one time supported by Google, and now aren’t.

There was no reason for most of these projects to ever have existed except that Google has more money than they know what to do with.

I use Zoho for corporate email, NextCloud for data backup, DuckDuckGo for search (I actually prefer it because the search results are more transparent) and a feature phone for voice and it’s no hassle.

There are some who see digital ads as a massive bubble waiting to burst, and I for one agree with them.

I can’t have my life / business disrupted because people realized $X million is too much to pay to host a link to your site that your customers would have gone to anyway, and suddenly Google has to shut down a bunch of services.

Consumer boycotting isn’t going to affect them anyway because they don’t care. They can fake your traffic easily.

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@cidig I avoid google and its products as much as possible they are no. 1 in online ads for nothing. You are fortunate if you lived in Poland your privacy is protected by the EU GDPR.

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That’s an interesting take on the subject. I agree.

I heard (but didn’t go into it) that in some cases GDPR has the opposite effect than intended. And GDPR is too little still.

But GDPR indeed marks a shift in policy making. I am curious if this could be sensibly interpreted in favor of google usage. Google can be understood as a kind of basic infrastructure and GDPR etc. seems to tame it. So maybe avoiding it and paying extra for other services is like avoiding electricity or the like.

If in any future Google collapses or is dismantled by antitrust moves, the infrastructure with all the users will only be taken over by other companies. Won’t it?

Just wondering. :slight_smile:

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Earlier this year Google was fined for violating GDPR for two reasons 1. lack of transparency for how user data is processed. 2. lack of consent from users for targeted ads. It is significant in the sense that GDPR has real teeth and this made an example of Google a tech giant. The message was clear that every organization who deal with european customers and partners must protect any sensitive informations or face hefty fines. There are alternatives to Google product and services. I think consumers interest would be always be protected and paramount to anti-trust regulators when dealing with monopolistic companies.

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What a question a good question @cidig! And not one that I think anybody can answer but you.

To use an analogy to animal welfare & global warming, you should consider where your beliefs sit on the spectrum and act accordingly.

For example, are you somebody who wants to go fully “vegan” and adopt an activist mentality, or do you have more faith that the system will work itself out (e.g. EU regulation, governmental intervention, etc.), and therefore your actions are fairly insignificant, or do you sit somewhere else along this spectrum?

There is no right or wrong answer, and your viewpoint will absolutely evolve as you conduct more research and experiment with these different views.

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It’s evolving constantly and it’s been oscillating recently. :wink: Actually, I am a vegan. Maybe that’s enough of extremism for one person… on the other hand what’s extreme in it? :smiley: The things we’re battling against are extreme.

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Do you think it is worth the effort to maximize avoiding Google for example? There are so many aspects: privacy, attention, democracy, freedom… And I am all for trying to lead a decent, responsible, as ethical as I can afford life. > Blockquote

Personal values (ethics, philosophies, etc.) are, to be sure, tested and aligned in how we approach and use technology.

To have (choose) access to ‘x’ means ‘x’ has access (allowed) to you. That cannot be overstated in an privacy context discussion. The same democracy and freedoms which allow us to make good and bad choices have the caveats of enabling us to surrender both through covert access to our privacy which Google (I think this is what you are addressing) and social media enjoy via our permission. Free services are NOT free.

Is it ‘worth’ avoiding Google and other services? It depends on how one’s personal ethics measure up to pragmatic challenges. We know burning fossil fuels are an environmental issue yet nearly all of us benefit from some form of that energy source until more alternatives are available.

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Any new thoughts in the post-pandemic world where IT giants have gained much more leverage thanks to their highly needed online services?

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I still say, yes, it is worth it.

A client of mine recently experienced an outage in one of AWS’s services for almost a whole day. Of course, Amazon did not admit that the service went down at all, even though all requests returned an Internal Error code. All large companies past a certain size will start to bully and abuse their customers.

Free services like GMail can be useful at times. But nothing is truly free in this world. You’re either paying in a way you don’t realize, or the payment is overdue and the service is about to be abruptly terminated.

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What a coincidence that I saw this popping up on my Humane Tech home feed! I just read an article from a Gizmodo journalist trying to live without Amazon & Google (and FB, Apple) - it’s nearly impossible (Readup link, direct link).

I was surprised that even privacy-oriented services like DuckDuckGo and Signal are hosted by AWS, and Firefox Send (RIP) used Google Cloud. The OP question “Should I even escape this reality of convenient big tech?” applies to us as privacy (etc.) conscious individuals, but also to privacy-conscious companies.

Two quotes from that article:

When companies can’t lock us into proprietary ecosystems, we have more freedom.

I want to embrace a lifestyle of “slow Internet,” to be more discriminating about the technology I let into my life and think about the motives of the companies behind it.

(more comments on Readup)

For me, these two still answer the question. Personally questioning companies’ motives, supporting alternative companies and products so that they have a chance to grow, compete, and raise awareness. But as someone who’s also still using many Google products and others, I realize that you can not easily tackle everything at the same time.

I’m too! But after a very brief “militant” period, I became really supportive of people just trying to add several vegetarian meals to their week. Any reduction is positive and has an impact. The same counts for tech.

Having mainstream-rejecting thoughts of one kind makes one more likely/open to have mainstream-rejecting thoughts for other topics as well, I believe. Even that was covered in this article! :smiley:

Many people I talk to about this experiment liken it to digital veganism. Digital vegans reject certain technology services as unethical; they discriminate about the products they use and the data they consume and share, because information is power, and increasingly a handful of companies seem to have it all.

When I meet a full-time practitioner of the lifestyle, Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a technologist at the ACLU, I’m not totally surprised to discover he’s an actual vegan.

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I think you should prioritize your attention over petty privacy concerns. I know this will upset some people but the risk is more present in how mass data is used and leveraged than at the individual level. Privacy is important and should be monitored, but in most cases the much more real threat of technology right now is its impact on your attention. So if looking for alternatives takes you more time, you’re already losing attention.

Use encryption softwares for your google drive if you wish. But I really don’t see what terrible thing could happen from your search data and calendar being leaked. As for email, it’s already terrible insecure at the protocol level no matter what. Even if you try securing it, 90% chances are the person on the other side is using Gmail or some other centralized service. Just relax, there are in facts far more real risks inherent to life: take care of your health, your loved ones and drive safely.

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I completely admit that privacy and data protection is a concern. Once you launch or register with Google, for Gmail address, you automatically agree to share the basic data with the service provider. I believe majority of the people doesn’t know about it. Have you ever read their T&C? We willfully mark “I agree”, before even try to read a single sentence.
I have seen many people speaking about it tirelessly, yet they do the same when it comes to Gmail account creation. The unavailability of right information regarding the product makes it difficult for people to understand the reality. Proper knowledge and awareness can mitigate many misconceptions. I would recommend these service provider to educate the customer/clients about their policies and terms & conditions. Creating a catalogue can be a perfect solution.
Many software development and application development companies with the help of best technical documentation services providers develop a handbook for future reference. Likewise, Google and other service providers can do the same to develop a document which is comprehensible for local citizens. An educational guide on their products.