Using alternatives and open source services can overcome these issues I listed.
Everyone wants to use the best thing out there. Everyone wants the best service for them. Mainstream services are mostly the best and that’s why they are mainstream.
Example? Google and its services.
I don’t hate google. It provides the best services, easy to use, better user experience, seamless design and good search experience.
Almost everyone with a smartphone uses google and most of them have their one Gmail account that they use for everything — From signing up to websites, newsletters, courses to jobs, social media, academics, health, and finance.
Suppose in the near future, they ban your Gmail account for violating some so-called community guidelines and terms of usage.
Boom! you screwed up.
Now you need to change your Gmail address on every place or platform that you subscribed to. That’s called user-control. Now google controls you.
Using the mainstream service comes with some drawbacks. and here on the internet. it comes with potential drawbacks like security, data leak, manipulation through target ads.
Have you ever noticed while searching on google, In the search results, a few websites that are being shown on the top are sponsored or advertisements. The 4th or 5th website is actually the result you’re looking for.
And the thing you search for comes in your Instagram or Facebook or snapchat ads?
Yes, it happens. Your search history is being tracked and you are shown targeted ads.
Using alternatives and open source services can overcome these issues I listed.
Here are some advices to use the alternate or non-mainstream options to avoid such problems:
- Have your personal website or blog to share your stories instead of any social media platform.
- For email, get yourself a personal email of your website like email@yourwebsite.com
- For search engines, use privacy-first and non-tracking search engines like DuckDuckGo.
- Instead of chrome, use brave or Vivaldi like privacy-first browsers for regular surfing on the internet. (I have been using Vivaldi with DuckDuckGo for most of my regular surfing and I am loving it.)
- When you want to learn about a product, make sure to use such a service to search that isn’t tracking you. Hence you will get unbiased search results.
- There are other various tools or software that are open source and do better than proprietary ones. Like VS code, Linux etc.
- Alternative services have the mindset to keep improvising and become the mainstream in the future, hence they provide better support and services.
- Open source communities are like your friendly-neighbors, you will always get help whenever you need it.
- Instead of focusing on building Instagram, Twitter followers, Linkedin dead connections, start making buddies with chit chat about your common field. Work together on projects. You can start a newsletter talking about such things and who knows you find like minded buddies with it.
- Try to find open source alternatives to the services you use. It might not be the best but it will save you time and money.
Try to find open source alternatives to the services you use. It might not be the best but it will save you time and money.
Thanks for reading. Share your views and experiences in the comments.
This blog is an excerpt of my newsletter issues, You can subscribe my Free Weekly Newsletter here.
— Ankit Upadhyay.