DeGoogling Expectations

In the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to de-google or to extract myself from algorithmically based social media apps. I’ve had a revelation in doing that. You’ve probably heard it before, but, if you do not pay for an app, you are the product.. When you’re using an open-source software (OSS) for maps, YouTube, email, or calendars, you are never going to find a perfect replacement. Those “perfect apps” sell your data, have hundreds or even thousands of developers working on them, and millions of money in VC funding, whereas these open-source alternatives do not. A good example is TikTok. I’m trying to wean myself off it, and the open-source alternative to TikTok is Loops. The UI is very similar but the community and the controls are very rudimentary. You’re not going to get A one-to-one comparison app, and you shouldn’t expect that. TikTok is a $1 billion company with thousands of developers working on it, whereas loops has one developer working on it.

When you use these open-source alternatives, you are trading perfection for privacy and security. You have to always keep that in mind when you are de-googling or de-algorithming (is that a word??) your online experience. When you take that into consideration, the experience becomes a lot easier to handle.