I believe in an open internet, FOSS, privacy by default, etc. I migrated away from Google by self-hosting Nextcloud. I prefer messaging apps like Molly, SimpleX, Threema, Matrix, etc. over standard SMS. I love the Fediverse (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc.).
But everyone I live with and everyone I know simply refuses to take part. I can’t interact with them socially because they’re all on Facebook. I can’t communicate with them because they all use group texts for SMS/RCS. I feel like I’m living in a different part of the world and am completely disconnected from everything that’s going on around me (with the people I want to interact).
My question is: does anyone else experience this, and how do you reconcile it? I want to share photos and clever posts with my family but they aren’t on the Fediverse. I want to communicate securely with them but they only want to SMS. I want to share documents but they only use Google Docs.
There are people I’ve met on the Fediverse and through some secure messaging apps with whom I’ve struck up a rapport, but these are still (predominately) strangers, and I’d really like to involve the people I care about in these exciting new times. They just wont participate.
I feel like I’ve invited everyone in my family to go on a great, grand vacation away and I’m the only one who’s packed.
I feel like I’ve invited everyone in my family to go on a great, grand vacation away and I’m the only one who’s packed.
From their perspective, you’re the fringe idealist who wants to move to a strange, remote place because of nebulous political ideology they neither understand nor wish to understand. And you are proposing that they uproot all of their preexisting social connections, support infrastructure, comfort, and familiarity to come live with you out in the middle of your scary, unfamiliar dystopia. Or, at least, force them to book a redeye flight and stay at a suspect hotel every time they want to visit you.
And honestly, you really are the fringe idealist here. Look at where you are posting this. Look at how few of us there are. Look at how many hoops you needed to jump through to set up what you have now. I certainly don’t think you’re wrong to champion privacy-focused ideals, but it absolutely is, strictly speaking in a populist context, extremely weird. It is weird to want to understand computerized tech, to know what it actually does, and to make bold, against-the-grain choices based on that knowledge. This is the unfortunate reality, and you have to make your peace with it.
I really do think your option is binary here. Join 'em, or cut 'em. Once you’ve shot your shot to convince someone to be more consciencious of their privacy and to take action to better secure it, and they frustratingly decline, that’s it. They are not coming with you. Further pressing the issue will just drive a wedge between the two of you. At that point, the choice is yours. What’s stronger, your willingness to stay conected, or your principles? Are you so rigidly disciplined that you’re willling to cut ties (at least, through these channels) just to keep it? If so, I guess that’s just a reflection of how much your principles really mean to you. If not, well, it’s SMS/RCS and Google Docs for you.
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I don’t really blame them for not making a switch; I understand their stance/reasoning. It’s just depressing to be the one guy left out, like I don’t get to dance with anyone at the party because I don’t like the music.
You want them to download a specific app to talk to you while you refuse to download a specific app to talk to them.
Just sit on that for a bit. That’s exactly how they see this. It’s got nothing to do with privacy at all.
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I’m 19 yo, and I proudly announce that I have never been trapped by social media. I’m that one guy who never uses Instagram, and you can only find me through my close friends. I just don’t care about whatever they are doing. Honestly that’s something that has shaped my mental health pretty well.
For communication, it’s unfortunate that everyone uses what everyone uses. My strategy right now, is to wait. Patiently. Waiting for those big platforms to fuck up. You can’t expect anyone to go a different path instantly. Being too pushy about FOSS may disgust them, and backfire.
For example, my dad recently expressed his hate for Google Photos, so I offered him Immich, and he’s happy about it. Now I’m waiting for the opportunity for Matrix.
I’ve never been trapped by social media. I never use Instagram, and you can only find me through my close friends.
…he says, on public social media.
Lemmy counts, dude. Idk what to tell you. Just because you don’t have a follower count doesn’t mean it sucks you in any less.
Also I’m a bit skeptical that people will want to adopt the fediverse even when the big platforms DO fuck up. Look at how many people are still on Reddit. Look at how many people saw Twitter melting down in real time and, rather than try to do anything with Mastodon, said “If Elon makes me really mad, I might switch to Threads.” Human inertia is INSANE. Learning how the fediverse works is hard, and doing research to pick an instance is effort. Why would they do that when there’s a perfectly good 1 for 1 Twitter clone right there (which, as a bonus, is built by a billionaire who hates the same billionaire they hate)? And that’s assuming they can bear to leave all the followers and content they’ve amassed behind at all.
Even if that were a non issue, there’s another problem. Libre apps/platforms by and large are not, by ANY usability/feature-completeness metric, better than the competition. My dad, who’s a photographer, recently got fed up with Adobe Lightroom and tried to switch to Linux + Darktable + Rapid Photo Downloader (for ingesting SD cards). Darktable doesn’t have auto color calibration and using the manual tools takes 30 seconds per photo, and Rapid Photo Downloader worked at half the speed Lightroom did. He tried really hard to like it but within a year he ended up biting the bullet and giving Adobe more money.
My dad was one of the developers of HP UNIX. I learned vi from him. He understands the value of open source better than anyone, and he’s no stranger to having to finagle things to get them to work. Open source alternatives couldn’t keep HIM on board.
What do you think my non-technical friends are going to say when I introduce them to Matrix and tell them that there are no modern amenities like stickers, threads, or custom emoji, they have to pair devices manually to get chat logs to sync and even then they sometimes randomly don’t, and none of the mobile clients except the official one support voice calls???
I honestly do not see how we can possibly win this. Frankly, I’m having second thoughts about Matrix.
I know Lemmy counts as social media, but I can get off at any time I want, unlike some weird people camping their phones for notifications all day.
When big platforms fucked up, there are influx to the Fediverse. Yes, when comparing us to the big platforms, we are still way smaller, but people are moving. We just need to wait patiently. Our job is to announce our existence, but without being pushy about it, because no one likes being forced to do something.
I told my friends about my Matrix instance and bridges, and sent them a screenshot, and that’s it. I also told them if they want to enter the Fediverse, I’ll be their guide. Nothing so far, but I’m waiting.
I should also tell you how I got to the FOSS side of the Internet. It was boredom. I learnt about Linux from my high school teacher talking about it for 30 seconds, and that summer holiday I was bored, so I tried to mess with Linux, and now I’m here.
I believe in us.
Substitute your beliefs in FOSS etc for god, veganism, Apple, Trump, Biden, your favourite band - and realise that everyone’s on their own journey. Don’t be that guy forcing your beliefs on your friends and family. Or, like you do, find a social group that does share your beliefs. Enjoy them. Enjoy your family and friends.
Unfortunately they are forcing their use of Facebook on him. I don’t force feed vegan friends meet. Don’t force me to give my data to Zuckerberg.
What you are feeling is natural and relatable. You need to find a balance and define your threat model.
Privacy maximalism and/or FOSS maximalism etc is natural impulse when you first begin to grasp just how quietly exploitive, invasive, and commoditized the modern internet is. But it also leads to burnout and can be isolating if you are too rigid about it.
Define your threat model, and your priorities. Accept that perfection is not attainable and do the best you can. It’s less overwhelming.
My advice:
- pick ONE easy to use and well established/reputable messenger that is privacy respecting (Signal is the obvious choice in my eyes). Make it known that this is your preferred messenger (and have a short, not super technical and not super political explanation why you prefer it). Try to get the people you are closest with or communicate with most, and the people you think are most likely to be interested to start using it.
- Then, have a preferred fallback or two (basically the “least worst” mainstream option). Depending on your circle, iMessage, RCS, WhatsApp, or Telegram might be that fallback. None are anywhere near perfect but they also aren’t the worst and sometimes you have to meet people where they are.
This is really great advice, I guess the middle ground has always been a bit of a struggle for me.
This echoed for me, I’ll remember it:
Privacy maximalism and/or FOSS maximalism etc is natural impulse when you first begin to grasp just how quietly exploitive, invasive, and commoditized the modern internet is. But it also leads to burnout and can be isolating if you are too rigid about it.
The most private thing you can do is to not participate at all /s
With that said, I largely agree with your points. There needs to be a good reason for the OP to continue their journey
I just don’t fucking care.
If people prefer WhatsApp because “everyone is using it” then bad luck for them reaching me. Facebook? Am I mentally challenged? If you want to know stuff about my life, ask me. If you want to see pictures of my lovely pet, ask me. Who needs this upvote-circlejerking of fake posers?
If someone really cares, they’d jump on the platform I use or they don’t.
Of course I am willing to explain and even install everything for the technically challenged. Also explain, in detail, WHY I’m so strict.
Only thing I am using mainstream with is the stupid pixel-phones. Ironically they’re the easiest to un-google. And there is no (good) alternative yet.
If someone really cares, they’d jump on the platform I use or they don’t.
What do you do when they feel the same way and don’t understand why you think you’re worth so much extra time and effort to interact with compared to everyone else?
Do you just cut those people out of your life?
If someone wants me to install a service exclusively to speak to them: fuck em, not worth it.
I use basic text messages to contact people, it’s damn near the most universal thing people have when I meet them. I’m not gonna go out of my way to download an app and remember to use it for a specific person when texting exists and everyone else uses it already
This is the argument I typically get from others (though, not as aggressive). I don’t blame this stance at all; it makes sense and is reasonable. I try to extol the benefits of the alternatives I propose but there’s simply no getting past “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitudes.
Sure, it’s a reasonable stance. But i would just part digital ways with that person then. Why should, let’s say, whatsapp be the default someone has to deviate from? Just because it’s #1 (by count, not quality)? Should I feel extorted to install it because “everyone does”? Why is it ok this way round?
Well fine by me. Basic text messages work.
It’s not really “so much extra time”. It’s installing another app. And they’re not cut out then, i still exist in the real world 😊 But i won’t use whatscrap, fuckbook and the likes. Period. And honestly, if people don’t even question why those things are horrible, i question myself why I’m interacting with them in the first place.
But it probably helps to be an old antisocial 😁
Absolutely based. I’m working on it to be like you, man.
I’m an old geezer. Ignorance comes with age 😁
no normalizing overused word plese
You have a product that needs to be sold just as much as google needed to sell gmail. This is where the technical rubber meets the social road. It is a given that not everyone will want to host their services, so to get the network effect people need to use your instance.
With that in mind, first and foremost you should treat your services you host almost like a product: you do need to sell it, it needs to be maintained it, and if other people get onboard you can’t just get bored of it and put it down. Your product is niche and competes with the largest corporate entities out there, but you have the advantage that you can genuinely personally know your customers and your customers can personally and genuinely know you.
I spend considerable thought on this, unless you are talking about household members or other people who trust you borderline absolutely, there is just no way to get a stranger or acquaintance to meaningfully use your hosted services.
For the stuff i host that i can share from my hosted services i make it apparent to the users that the data is subject to my whims. think this helps a little as it puts the otherwise unstated in the open, it would be awkward for a friend to have to ask me how safe their data is, i can acknowledge their data is as safe as their relationship with me is, and honestly that’s the best that can be done without structuring.
Now structuring: if you genuinely want members of your communities to be able to buy in, become consistent and stable with your services operations, a d make a legal entity. Use the entity to provide what you have as a service to have the legal structures in place to protect you and your users. If you think this is bullshit, i don’t recommend because i think the structures will protect anything, i recommend because the structures indicate trustworthiness to the type of people who don’t make themselves concerned with matters they are instructed to not bother with. You would be able to make an appeal to a more personal business relationship.
Now that highlights the effort, as the privacy advocate i functionally have to operate a business to maintain my digital infrastructure; if i want others to join my network i should commit and run a privacy-centric business. There is opportunity here for standard operational models to be documented so that power users can quickly bootstrap and present an adoptable platform to their communities; however, i am not there yet myself.
I’ve been on both sides of this table. Yes, I wish people would move away from WhatsApp but that’s not going to happen. They’re not going to even make an effort to begin to understand Signal just to talk to me. I could just not use WhatsApp and use Signal to talk to myself, that’d be fun.
I understand their frustration as well, people already have too many message apps already. WhatsApp, telegram, hangouts, SMS, Slack, Discord… When asked to install a new app they are naturally reluctant to install yet another messaging app just to talk to me and only me. I too have that one friend who bugs me every couple of months to install the new cool message app that is going around. Currently that SimpleX, wonder what comes next.
Never even heard of SimpleX. Is that some Musk-related shitty thing?
Haven’t googled it yet but my bet is crypto.
EDIT: glad to be wrong. Looks like Tor but for chat. Looks quite cool, but considering I couldn’t even get the friend who hosts my Matrix homeserver to stick with Matrix, my hopes aren’t high for getting a chance to play around with it
Ah yeah, I don’t see that happening either because there is somewhat of a learning curve for folks who have never done that kind of thing before, and it’s unlikely grandma would be ready to make the swap.
I just don’t worry about it and do my own thing. It’s like veganism lol, it’s not for everyone.
I know what you mean, but people are all like “but I can post on Facebook with Siri without having to think” or whatever.
Pushing your family isn’t going to help, unfortunately. There’s a pretty low threshold of nagging at which they’ll start being less inclined to take your advice for any additional bit of nagging.
My advice: make peace with it. Either quit SMS and Facebook and be aware that it’ll hamper communication with them or use SMS/RCS and Facebook and Google Docs and try to hedge as much as you can against privacy invasion within that context. Or throw caution to the wind and just use whatever they’re willing to use to talk to them.
OP pleaee let me know if you find a solution. So far what i host is for me… Matrix bridges are a godsend.
I love software freedom, federated networks, proper encrytption, and all of that too.
But I’m not kidding myself into thinking that it’s worth losing friends over. Do facebook and IG suck? yeah. But that’s where the social network is. The product isn’t the software, it’s the network.
That’s kind of the point of the fediverse, that we can expand to achieve a large-scale network that creates the same positive network effects as a social network like… well, more like reddit or twitter, primarily due to the norm of anonymity, probably not a replacement for facebook, but…
Anyway… I think that, depending on the specifics, it might actually be a good idea to federate with Threads, just to expand the network, gain mainstream appeal, normalize the fediverse, and drive engagement here.
[Edit: is BEEPER the one Messenger to rule them all? Billed as self-hostable and Open Source, native to Matrix but with integrations to act as front end for What’s App, Signal Telegram, Facebook Messenger, etc… this is looking promising! Anyone have experience? https://www.beeper.com/ ]
Remember the great Instant Messenger schism? (I know, I’m dating myself) Back in the day AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and MSN Messenger were the top IM platforms, while the IT crowd self-hosted IRC servers. None of these platforms were interoperable, each set up with different protocols in walled gardens. What was the answer for those of us who wanted it all? Third party cross-platform apps that integrated with each major API and provided a unified front-end, with Trillian being the most widely adopted to my knowledge.
WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and all the rest of the single-host messengers are just Instant Messenger platforms wrapped an an App shell with different encryption layers. The answer that we are all craving is a Trillian for the current generation, bundling SMS in with all these other platforms, however as I understand it these service providers no longer offer API access that would allow a third party front end client. The walled gardens no longer have gates, and the enshitification is progressing.
Note that there were official attempts to unify the original IM platforms with interoperability, but to quote wikipedia:
"Most attempts at producing a unified standard for the major IM providers (AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft) have failed, and each continues to use its own proprietary protocol.
However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, Reuters signed the first inter-service provider connectivity agreement in September 2003. This agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger users to talk with Reuters Messaging counterparts and vice versa. Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed to a deal in which Microsoft’s Live Communications Server 2005 users would also have the possibility to talk to public instant messaging users. This deal established SIP/SIMPLE as a standard for protocol interoperability and established a connectivity fee for accessing public instant messaging groups or services. Separately, on October 13, 2005, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that by the 3rd quarter of 2006 they would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE, which was followed, in December 2005, by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal in which Google Talk users would be able to communicate with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an AIM account[…]
Certain networks have made changes to prevent them from being used by such multi-network IM clients. For example, Trillian had to release several revisions and patches to allow its users to access the MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! networks, after changes were made to these networks. The major IM providers usually cite the need for formal agreements, and security concerns as reasons for making these changes.
The use of proprietary protocols has meant that many instant messaging networks have been incompatible and users have been unable to reach users on other networks.[29] This may have allowed social networking with IM-like features and text messaging an opportunity to gain market share at the expense of IM.[30]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging
History is doomed to repeat itself unless FOSS can win on convenience and UX. One could imagine a big player like Mozilla taking this on and rolling a messenger with an open protocol into their software stack, but that still wouldn’t kill the others due to network effect unless it had some killer app advantage.
Is Beeper the one chat client to rule them all?
Email address and phone number to sign up? I dunno, chief…
Yeah… gave me pause as well. Then again WhatsApp and several of the other services require the same.
I think the deal is if you self host you don’t have to give them anything.
IIRC Pidgin integrates all of the ones you mentioned along with XMPP services. I only know about it because they used to offer it where I worked and couldn’t use the others, but admittedly I cannot speak about its privacy features or lack thereof.
Edit: don’t listen to me, I don’t see a mobile version like OP wanted.
@PrincessLeiasCat yeah, there are a lot of Windows and Linux based solutions, but not many mobile native.
A lot of us here are on the same boat. We don’t know each other but deal with these same issues. We know the truth behind proprietary software and surveillance capitalism and we know that we can only succeed in our efforti if we bring together our loved ones. We need to find the best language and ways to let people know the reality behind the software they use, the dangers of using it, and the marvelous solutions of the free software community. We are a community. Let’s hold ourselves together and keep going. The world may be based in libre software in the future. If it doesn’t, it will be not a good place to live on. But at least we tried. If not for us, for the ones that’ll come in the future.
email covers all my use cases. if they want me, they know how to email me and vice versa. these days its damn instant, attachments are easily managed.
k.i.s.s.
