I've been breaking up with "Big Tech" for the past two years. I'm not the first or the last designer to do so. What I think is interesting are the reasons people have for doing it. They range from the political via the functional or philosophical to the outright conspiratorial. What most people have in common though is the desire to make an informed decission. Personally I have three main reasons for switching apps and services. Two serious and one jolly happy one:
Point #1 is the one people love challenging me on the most. I'm not going to get in to it except to say that I'm not perfect and even though one can't (ok I can't!) turn my back on every evil corporation out there, I can easily walk away from some of them and that's a very good feeling. And it's not only a North American thing (Meta, Google, ...) even though it sometimes sounds like it. I stay clear of the likes of Baidu (China) and Spotify (Sweden) too. Point #2 is obvious: Any organisation in need of the most rock solid data integrity should host their bits and bobs in the EU/EFTA. Switzerland being the best option. And it's not only a European thing. Outside of our continent I've been told Panama has strong data protection laws. Japan's APPI is, I know, strong too. Ok now the fun one! Finding alternatives to My favorite example: Did you know Miro is Dutch and very big on GDPR? I didn't either until I mapped where my commoly used apps and services are based/host their data/got their start. So no need to find an alt to that rather brilliant piece of sw! But yes, breaking up with Mean Tech requires finding alternatives. There are excellent starting points like the 'European Alternatives' directory, and once you get going you'll probably enjoy it! 'Cause it is very satisfying to leave Mean Tech behind. If for no other reason than the alternatives being SO MUCH BETTER. Apols for yelling, but IMHO these are some of the top tools on the planet:
Proton Drive (Switzerland) beats OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud in most specs/categories. (My clients luv luv luv Proton Drive!) Hostpoint (Switzerland) a rock solid, privacy focused email host with live phone support should you need it. I imagine their servers being hidden under snowy Swiss mountains, guarded by trolls! Kagi Search (USA), paying €5 per month to actually find what I'm searching for saves me oodles of time and frustration. The results integrate nicely in to Kagi Assistant (their AI bit) too. Mistral AI (France) runs circles around Claude/OpenAI/etc for some of my use cases. Deezer (France) has fantastic music discovery and I'm never going back to Apple Music or even (gasp!) Tidal. Proton Meet Them again! It's because they build splendidly good sw. Including for secure video calls that don't lag, throttle video or require a sw install. ...and finally, of course, Rumicat the hosts of this newsletter. Clean, all about the writing.
If you have any questions about any of these services, hit reply and I'll be happy to share more of my personal experiences. It's not easy switching services, tools and providers. But like with a bad situationship, once you're out of it you'll wonder why it took you so long.
Need
Utterly in love with these Gel-Terra-something from Asics... But are they Jaan? Music ▷ Paris Paloma featuring Nature: Miyazaki
/Jaan ⎚-⎚
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