this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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Oh, absolutely. The privacy aspect of this situation is just insane. Publishing your face and thoughts on Facebook was pretty messed up, and doing the same thing for career purposes isn’t any better.
The only reason why I made a LI account was basically the same reason why companies started making websites in the late 90s. If you don’t have a website, your company doesn’t exist, and that’s just an unnecessary barrier to doing business. If you don’t have a LI profile, you don’t exist and that’s just an unnecessary barrier to getting employed. The unfortunate realities of our world today...
And that’s not even the only disgustingly broken system we tolerate these days. Academic publishing, advertising, social media visibility, just to name a few. How did we end up with a mess like this.
At least on Fuckbook you kinda do it voluntarily. Noone forces you. But as far as I can oversee the job-world it's kinda a necessity nowadays (LI). I guess I would really really really be screwed should I look for a job today. Can't create an anonymous profile, would not gift my valuable personal info to - especially - a murican company. That would probably kill my chances pretty well. Especially in the IT. Ugh.
And yes, you're right. Academics isn't much better. And let me not start about ads or social cancer, err media.
How we got here? From an old far who was there day #1 (when i had to move to another city to personally sign a contract to have internet-access, lol): The more non-geeks explored the web, the more dumbed down (not meant demeaning) it had to become. And the lower the lowest common denominator became, the more everything had to adapt. Then google switched from "don't be evil!" to being the most evil motherfucker of them all and it all went downhill. Now, after witnessing the rise of search-engines I'm right in the endtimes of their decay. Search SUCKS ASS. AI sucks a lil less ass, but more blows the front. It's also shit, but faster! And 10yrs from now when 99% of the net is circlejerked AI-junk fed to other AIs that feed other AIs.... I could go on for hours but...
At least, we have a buy-european-movement that slowly gains traction. That's something, right? RIGHT?
Well, the good thing about the current situation is diversity. Nowadays, we have lots of interesting alternatives for many essentials. Take the entire Fediverse for example. Also, the search monopoly is being challenged by alternatives, some of which are based on the distributed self-hosted instance approach we’ve seen with the Fediverse. Mainstream will always stay with the evil corporations, but at least everyone else can choose something better.
The biggest bottle neck I see with all of this is mobile operating systems. Technically, you can run something other than Android or iOS, but then you’re switching on hard mode in your life. With most other things though, the alternatives are surprisingly viable these days.
And speaking of using shitty software voluntarily. It sort of is, but not really. I’ve persistently avoided WhatsApp, but I keep bumping into that stupid spyware all the time. The pressure is growing every year as more and more people and even businesses become increasingly dependent on it. Fortunately though, people have moved on from Facebook, so I can continue to ignore that platform as I have done so far. I’m just hoping that WhatsApp crosses that threshold and people start switching to Signal.
True. Lemmy is a great example of how it could (and damn should) be. Never regretted being forced to leave reddit in the apipocalypse. Yet, search? LaCy is the only one i know and searching is...challenging at best. I'm running an instance and also searXng.
Mobile, oh yes. My next phone will surely be Linux if Google will really fuck up android with killing sideloading. Not that I wouldn't have expected them to do it sooner or later. Might be also challenging, but luckily I don't NEED a phone, I just like having it (and for android-auto, i hate being forced into the car's ecosystem...which now bites me in my ass).
WA is serious cancer, yes. The amount of "what?! why don't u use WA?!?!"-faces i get saddens me. But fuck you all. My wife is on telegram (yeah, i know, but i need the API!) and that's all I need. Whomever else wants to chat me? they're free to do, but i won't be held hostage on WA. And if people wouldn't install an app for me (as i'm expected for them, but THEY are those that don't care for privacy and such), i'm not important enough so screw them anyway. But I've often been schooled that in certain countries it's totally unavoidable. But that probably just depends on your level of achievable freedom, so to speak. Wouldn't share your optimism that they might cross a threshhold. Majority of users have not the slightest clue about anything or, way more badly, just don't care ("I have nothing to hide!").