I’m starting to wonder what the real benefit even is anymore. Between the technofeudal landscape we live in, where billionaires own the means of communication, data is constantly mined for profit, and surveillance is baked into every layer, it feels like I’m standing at the beach, using my bare hands to push back an endless tide.
Even when I take the so‑called “liberated” path through Linux, self‑hosting, and privacy tools, it often feels futile. The web itself is poisoned. Browsers are turning into tracking engines. Sites rely on manipulation and dark patterns. Social media is full of misinformation and ragebait.
Even open-source projects are being pulled under corporate influence (ex: Firefox adoption of AI).
It feels exhausting to route around a web that’s already been captured.
So I’m asking myself: what’s the point? Why not just step away?
Why not trade the illusion of digital control for actual peace, get a dumb phone, a CD player, and check out books, movies, music, and games from the library as my entertainment?
Does anyone else feel this way? Have you found ways to reconnect with technology?
I’ve had similar thoughts these past two or three years but at least with my current life (family, work/studies, volunteering…) going offline isn’t even close to feasible. But at least I have started to move more and more of my online life to FOSS services or smaller or European companies. Finally installed Linux last year, also thinking of dabbling in self-hosting some time in the near future.
But I’m pretty sure the next years will give us a kind of Neo-Luddite movement, because you’re clearly not the only one fed up with modern digitlal tech.