The shift to SaaS and Windows 11 updates means you no longer own your software. Here is how free software tools can help you reclaim control.
The shift to SaaS and Windows 11 updates means you no longer own your software. Here is how free software tools can help you reclaim control.
I think I’m basically done after my current rig dies. I have no interest in being a peasant in some techno feudalist dystopia. Instead, I’ve been dedicating more time to reading books, writing, traveling, some retro gaming, and working around the house.
It’s enough for me.
These days, as a tech worker, I immediately log out at the end of my workday and shut everything down. I have no further interest. It’s not fun anymore. Frankly, I don’t think I can last until retirement in this space even if my job isn’t automated. I could retire today if I wanted to. But most people aren’t in that situation and I have no idea what I would do if I didn’t have the financial autonomy that I enjoy. And I got here–in part–by building parts of the platforms that harm us (social media). So that feels great.
We live in a dystopia. Everything fucking sucks.
“I enjoy great comfort and privilege.”
“I have relevant expertise and understand how these systems work”
“Remember, I have money and I’m gonna be fine whatever happens to everyone else”
“I’m too fucking cowardly to use my knowhow to fight back because that might jeopardize my relative comfort.”
Go fuck yourself, really.
You may be playing into their hands…
Your rig is how you communicate with the world - via unbreakable encryption if you choose to. It’s your source of information from sources of your choice more than theirs. It’s a route to be heard by your friends beyond your local neighborhood.
Yeah, big platform social media is a cess pit. Your rig is your portal to be a force against that tide. No, one pebble on the beach won’t stop it, but a billion pebbles?
I hear what you’re saying. But as of right now, I have no interest in any of it. The minute I start my workday, I’m already looking forward to turning everything off so I can go do something else. This whole digital information economy is repulsive to me.
I get it… I’ve been fortunate to be in a sort of “feel good” tech industry (medical devices) - and my current post is pretty low stress, light management touch which is really nice. People getting wound up about shipping on a particular day regardless of whether the product is ready or not and all that unregulated software jazz can be a real downer.
I still find joy in it. I work in tech support but I also am setting up my first homelab with ubiquiti gear and I’m having a lot of fun. Some parts are cobbled together from bits I can get free or cheap and those are the most fun. I don’t have a lot of money and that keeps it interesting.
I will carry the torch and have enough fun for the lot of us. I hope you have just as much fun doing what you’re doing.
I have a work laptop, and haven’t bought a computer for personal use in 10 years.
yup… once my current rigs fail, I’m not replacing them. I’m just abandoning it and they can do whatever.
I’ve checked out. I have zero subscriptions, own all my software, could afford to replace if I need to but… why… it’s a literal cesspool of corporate trash and I want nothing to do with it.
same with the cellphone… when it dies, I honestly don’t think I care to even replace it. might get hosted VoIP somewhere and have a landline in the house… beyond that, whatever … not my issue and if places like the Bank etc try to force it well… tough. I’ll go into the branch like it’s 1995 and update my paper passbook and withdraw cash for the week
Tried that lately? Hours are shrinking, lines are growing.
Same boat here, minus the “still in tech” that I left over 10 yrs ago. Picked up my last pc end of last year and packed up my previous rig for future use. With the old tech around my apt: Laptops, old pc’s, and raspberry pi’s, I should be able to last til I die. I will never use cloud gaming, only use for that I see is linux users that want to play certain “competitive” games, next phone will most likely be dumb as well. I started my journey on a Commodore Vic 20, never thought this would manifest
How do you get out?
I got burnt out and took a job that is not tech.
It used to be fun to trouble shoot issues, help people understand, on their terms, what the pc was doing and why. Then it got old cause everything started turning to crap, starting with vista (spent a week regressing ~30 laptops from vista to XP cause I didn’t want the headache of dealing with that brand new operating system). I used to build and wire, by hand, networks. I could whip out a cable in about 2 mins, from cut to crimp, and then set the Dell and/or Cisco routers/switches. I just couldn’t keep doing it and keep my sanity
I have felt the same for awhile honestly sans the could reitre today. I may have been spoiled though because I used to workin a research lab and then corpo jobs were fine but man the meetings and sudden change in technology for no other reason than its the current fad. I think though its just hard to do something full time for decades and still find it fun at home. One of the things though is as an IT guy I stopped configuring my systems because it was kinda tiresome and so often I had to know how the default was because that is what I would have to help people with. So I limited it to things I just could not live without but did not get to minutia about it. Then I got sorta sick up spinning things up and started going with what was easiest. mac’s when their warranty would just cover anything and then back to windows and even with linux I use easy to setup stuff. I just want it to work and not spend a whole lot on making it work anymore.
It’s not fun for me either, also in IT. My joy comes from watching my kid play, we just finished split Fiction and reanimal, now starting the last of us.
The most I get is jumping into random L4D2 pub games and rushing the maps while blasting music.