Asklemmy

Trying to meet users where they are over where you want them to be. For free software or creative commons endeavors, if a proprietary collaboration products (especially if exclusively) like Microsoft GitHub or Discord or Slack or Figma is

• locking issues behind their account + ToS
• ban projects that undermine capital interest (Yuzu, youtube-dl, third-party clients flagged as malicious, constantly breaking API to make building upon difficult)
• blocks a swatch of potential users for US sancations or a local regime
• happily hands off data to feds
• collects gobs of data to either sell and/or use to train AI models they will sell back to us
• Requires userStyles, userScript, filter lists to scrub the ads & social media features to have a worthwhile experience (kids call these “mods” on Discord for some reason)
• uses social media hook tactics to get you to spend more time on the platform
• have bloated clients that tear into your RAM

When there are free software alternatives that fit the bill (& crucially aren’t resource hogs hurting feasibility) or even non-profits running competing so you don’t need to pay, reach for these options. These projects might be less polished, but since they aren’t fighting to profit propped up by investors, this is to be expected? By getting curious users in the space they will report bugs & contribute upstream instead of building “mods” to correct the predatory option. If you have witnessed even one “enshittification” instance, you know this is inevitable so don’t waste your effort propping these up. Choose tools/services that align with your principles instead handwaving them as unimportant—or assuming users are too inept to learn something new. But also, there is a block of folks that are under respresented that already do know how to operate these platforms that are possibly disinfranchized or blocked that you haven’t even accounted for by choosing the corporate option.