WhatsApp was charging $1-$3 per year before Facebook's acquisition. They had 600M+ users and a team of twelve people. It was beautiful while it lasted.

Hopefully we can carry out the original mission with Signal.

Added to idcaboutprivacy (which is open source). If there are any other similar links, feel free to add them or send them my way.

Added to idcaboutprivacy (which is open source). If there are any other similar links, feel free to add them or send them my way.

Interesting... I like the idea of referencing, or creating some sort of tagging/category system. I'm not sure about pushing it to limits like a Wikipedia, solely because it'd be so much content to manage.

But hey, that's why I made it open source. With the help of the community, it makes a lot more feasible to create and handle. So never say never on that.

Thanks. All links have been just me so far, but I do think the project has some real value and would benefit from contributions.

What kind of wiki did you have in mind? What would it do?

Added this article to idcaboutprivacy.

The project is open source and only requires basic Markdown knowledge to contribute.

If you have any other privacy-related articles (especially those that talk about consequences), it'd be great for you to contribute.

I can't emphasize how important it is for you to control your phone, especially notifications. Every notification is literally a mind hijacking attempt. Regardless of the type of notification, it's something that disrupts our thinking and our flow.

Some of them are necessary—but most aren't.

All the native apps will of course try to get as much permission from you as possible, including notifications. Don't allow this permission freely.

Get really strict about which apps need to send you notifications, and when. Take it from a dude who used to give free reign to all apps for notifications.

Once I started thinking in a more digitally minimalistic way, it made a huge difference. Running GrapheneOS actually helped with this a lot. But you don't need GOS to do this and feel the difference.

I got some notifications turned on, but most of em are silent. So they still get delivered, but they're not time-sensitive. They'll be there when I check my phone next. I don't need em interrupting whatever I was doing or thinking.

TL;DR: Be strict about which notifications you allow, and when. It'll do wonders for your thinking, productivity, and mental health.

Not as far as I know. There's this Mastodon, but doesn't look legit: https://mastodon.online/@Solid

You're describing what Tim Berners-Lee is tryna build with Solid.

This is specific to open source, but perhaps a good starting point: https://opensourcely.org/

There's nothing that can express my disdain for Google's reCaptcha.

😒 We're training its AI models 😒 It's free labor for Google 😒 Sometimes it wants the corner of an object, sometimes it doesn't 😒 Wildly inconsistent 😒 Always blurry and hard to see 😒 Seemingly endless 😒 It's the robot asking us humans if we're the robots

Thoughts and takeaways, plus 3 viable solutions:

Thoughts

1️⃣ I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Enshittification might be a good thing. Here's why

I don’t “like” that things have gotten this bad, but I do like that the worse things get, the more we can collectively organize and pressure reform to fix these things.

2️⃣ These tests are usually run on relatively small subsets of the user base. Remember when they rolled out hiding likes? That was rolled out periodically as well.

They typically also run different types of user bases. They already know the hardcore "influencers" and people who have built a public following will never leave the platform, since they're too invested already, and are the people/publications that contribute the most to network effects. I.e., you're on there because they're on there.

3️⃣ Remember when Tim Kendall (former executive at Facebook) says that they talked about Zuckerberg having ultimate control over these 3 distinct goals?

1. Engagement: Drive up your usage. Keep you scrolling, liking, commenting, and remaining active on the platform.
2. Growth: Encouraging you to keep coming back and inviting your friends, and getting them to invite their friends, and so on.
3. Advertising: Make sure that as growth and engagement are happening, advertising revenue is maximized.

That's what's happening here—this is dial #3 being turned up.

Solutions

1. The most obvious: Delete your account

I know, I know—network effects are tough to break.

Tell your friends and family to delete theirs. Make yourself unreachable on Facebook-owned platforms.

Most people are posting less as traditional posts, and more as stories. If stories is your thing, Signal has stories. This is a really secure, private, and still convenient way to share whatever you want throughout the day.

If your favorite restaurant changes your dish's recipe, you'd prolly stop going, right? Well, that recipe's been changing, and we continue to put up with it despite an increasingly worse product.

2. For those looking for an alternative: Use Pixelfed

It doesn't have nearly the same type of content or user base size that Instagram does. But the same way that we built Facebook little by little, the same can be done for healthier alternative platforms.

This might also help your reduction in using social media, if you're looking for that.

3. For those who can't/will never leave Instagram: Use an open source native mobile app (Android-specific)

If you have an Android-based mobile operating system, there are apps like MyInsta and Instander that give you a native Instagram experience while blocking all of the ads.

They also have app-specific settings that allow you to customize your Instagram experience even further, such as (but limited to):

• Downloading photos/reels/entire carousels
• Reduces data sent to Instagram (analytics, ads, and other requests)
• Ghost mode
• Block reels, posts, stories, explore, comments, or whatever else
• Tons more

I run a basketball media outlet (InThePaintCrew) and a lifestyle/photography page (LifeViaChicago), and being able to modify the experience to remove the noise/clutter when a native Instagram app is needed is helpful.