tldr
I struggle to find balance between wanting privacy in my day-to-day, and wanting to use the newest and greatest services and products.
Pretext
This post is meant to drum up some discussion that I feel is often lost on privacy focused communities. It’s about the nexus between privacy and modern technology. I hope I don’t sound like an idiot, I still consider myself a novice at technological privacy.
I’m a fairly privacy concerned individual, not for any particular reason other than that I feel it’s my right, my data, and I should have the say over who gets to see/use it. Especially when I’m paying for a service. I find that at times, I am more privacy oriented than others. I have a Google Pixel 4 that I’ve used Lineage OS on for a while. I’ve bought an old thinkpad and have a a linux distro running on that as well. I also have, an iPhone, a Macbook, and a desktop PC used primarily for work/gaming that is running Windows 10. EDIT: I also want to recognize my privilege to be able to choose between all these devices. Not everyone can switch around so freely.
Every few weeks I tend to flip coins on the matter. Some weeks I really just want the ease of everything working, quick google searches, iMessage, polished operating systems, etc. Other weeks I want to be a total privacy nut and clamp down on all of my traffic, pop my SIM into my Lineage Pixel, and do my work on my laptop for a while.
Conversation
I want to know if anyone else goes through these types of moodswings like I do? I also want to hear your stories on how you went all the way and never looked back, or tried to and ended up somewhere in the middle. All of this back and forth for me has made me a much more privacy minded person, and the non-privacy focused products I used are about as clamped down as possible - but that’s not saying much.
Thought I was the only that feels this way. I try to stay away from anything too mainstream/centralized but that’s where the majority of people are at. Decentralized platforms are ghost towns in comparison. It’s also a hassle to convert people into using privacy messaging apps so sometimes I just give into using sms and try not to disclosed anything too personal.
I share this sentiment as well. I can’t even begin to get certain family members to switch to something like Signal - which makes iMessage miles better as an alternative to SMS/MMS. I’m also finding that what keeps me coming back to buying new tech and the like is the amount of media exposure I get. For example, that new YouTube video outlining all the expected features of the new iPhone, etc. These things add up in the subconscious.
As for decentralized platforms == ghost towns, this is normally true, but I’ve noticed this instance of Lemmy has been absolutely popping off lately. It makes me very happy to have engagement like this from like-minded people.
I’m banned from your instance, I’m team lemmygrad. If only we had the best of both worlds. My plan of action is to bring more exposure to decentralized platforms to communities that need it the most. Communities like conservatives and conspiracy theorist/realist.
Hope it works out for you. Makes sense why you eventually caught a ban though. This instance is advertised as leftest.