Comic Strips

We're techy enough nerds to know there's another way to be free of billionaire influence while still keeping some resemblance of modern communication: self-hosting.

We don't need to go back to handwritten mail, FOSS is the way to go.

That last panel hit me like a truck because... yeah, that's what people think happens when they do their little personal choice things to pretend they matter.

They really buy like a paper book once and go "ah, yes, Bezos is fuming right now" while he makes another billion.

We have lost all sense of how to influence society and all ability to gauge scale. For all the folksy traditionalism in this (which includes driving a gas guzzler from the 70s, apparently?) the Internet has created this entirely disproportionate sense of our footprint on the world and this strip is as much a result of the hyperconnected dystopia as everything it's complaining about.

In my experience this is extra bad for Americans who, frankly, didn't need that much of a push to go from their individualist, self-centered perception of society to this vision of sitting on a couch listening to a walkman as activism.

That’s exactly what is so nice about FOSS based systems. You can use technology but without the tech bros and the corporate enshittification.

or, you know, you can have best of both worlds with open technologies. tech that you own and control.

I am and probably always will be a tech enthusiast, but as time goes on I find myself more and more looking for old technology to avoid planned obsolescence, anti-repair bs, telemetry & tracking, lack of consideration for quality of life....

This is not how things were supposed to be. But this is how things will be if we don't do something about oligarchs and certain CEOs.

Cutting out the middle man does not involve technologically regressing.

Cutting out the middle man means stepping up and learning how the tech you use in your daily lives actually works. The only reason some tech bro can step in and ruin your life is if you let them keep you ignorant through convenience.

You want to cut out the middle man? Use, and support, open source. Fight to make everything that requires a server, be a server that you own in your own home (or is federated and in your local community). Use, and support, repairable technology... And actually repair your technology!

pre-computerised car

No one want to fiddle with carburetor anymore thank you very much.

And tbh, 2010-2015 is comfortable enough and less bullshit.

Is this supposed to be satire? How is print media owned by massive conglomerates, flip phones with no OSS firmware, handwritten letters delivered by a literal middleman, avoiding the middlemen??

Pre-computer cars sucked. Anyone that’s worked on mechanical fuel injection will tell you so.

I've been wanting to convert my life to "off grid tech". I have a nest camera i bought in 2016. So it's pre Google. Starting about 6 months ago, Google told me unless I allow them full 24/7 access to the cam then I can't use it. A product i bought almost a decade ago is useless unless I let them spy on me. Fuck you Google.

So anyways, off grid tech. Home surveillance on my own local server protected with physical data and VPN. No more streaming, pirate everything with local server. No more Google or Amazon anything. Music? Mp3. Email? No Gmail, maybe Proton or something. I'll do all banking through home desktop through VPN. Etc, etc.

I hope to have all these things achieved by 2030

I get the idea, but I am kinda stuck on the letter writing bit. They do know that the post getting delivered is kinda built on middlemen right?

I think the issue people have with "tech" is that much of the software and devices sold take up too much space and do things people don't want them to do, without offering choice, configurability, and options for full control

This is what using Linux feels like.

I’d like to add to the third panel: go see live entertainment. Local, not Live Nation. Support local bands, artists, thespians, and comics.

help desk -> sysadmin -> CISO -> goat farmer

I'm going back in a lot of areas, yeah.

When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you need to go backwards to correct and go forward again

I see a few comments about self hosting stuff to escape the clutches of big tech, and while all that is effective to a high degree, it is beyond the abilities of the general populace.

Besides, I am also of the opinion that not everything has to be digital or smart.

I relish writing and receiving letters, it is tangible and indicates commitment. Fortunately, postal system isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I like reading newspapers and it was sad to see all shops in my neighbourhood stop selling them during or after COVID. It was equally sad to see a lot of magazines not survive that period.

I miss my old TV that was simpler to use and started quicker than my newer smart TV. It does not matter if I disconnect the latter from the internet, it takes its time to load up. Besides, I don’t see any perceivable difference in picture quality from the distance I watch from.

Older laptops, though heavier, were more repairable. In certain aspects, they are better than modern ones: more tactile keyboard, nicer screen ratio (4:3). Of course, the newer laptops decimate the old ones when it comes to performance and screen quality but that is just technology progressing.

I could keep going on with a plethora of product categories. But across all my points, I wish some companies could continue offering such products, at least to a customer base that is willing to pay more just to support the existence of those products.

I hate to break it to you, but your personal consumption choices will not make a meaningful difference to the amount of enshittification you experience in your life.

This is why I never gave up on DVDs, even though people would laugh. As soon as Prime shoehorned ads in the middle of a show or movie, that's when I cancelled. I'll have to do the same with music and get my iPod battery fixed up if I can.

When ceiling fans and AC units requires an account, yeah, something's wrong.

Lots of things have always had middlemen. Any sales representative you've ever encountered is a commission-driven middleman. Cars, insurance, housing, the guy at the phone store - they all exist solely to make money doing what a well made website is valuable of. If a company has a sales team, they ate unnecessary middlemen.