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Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

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Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#111

Post by Trex_Egg »

COGlory wrote: post #99
nexthash wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I heavily rely on Google and Amazon. All my emails, purchases, photos, and browsing goes through them. Opting out would mean uprooting gigabytes of data to other services, which takes time to research, backup, and transfer. And even then you can't fully get rid of them, because switching to Apple from Android costs money, and I am not willing to root Android. This is merely my personal situation, but sayi…

I did it: - LineageOS + MicroG and F-Droid for mobile. - NextCloud (and DAV) running on an old laptop for calendar, contacts, and file storage. The mobile app uploads all my photos automatically. It backs up to Backblaze -ProtonMail with a custom domain for email. Amazon is pretty avoidable. Shipping has gotten faster and cheaper everywhere else at this point. At least for the rural place I am. I'm not particularly t…

It is good to see such implementations adopted more and more

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#112

Post by coldtea »

marcinzm wrote: post #28
throwawayboise wrote: post #24

Opt out. No Google. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Amazon. You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them. You can't change how they operate. But you can change how you operate.

> You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them. So I should probably lower the quality of my life to make a statement that will have no impact on them at all? >You can't change how they operate. Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.

>So I should probably lower the quality of my life to make a statement that will have no impact on them at all?

God forbid we "lower the quality of our lives" for such lowly things as principles!

>Sure you can, by petitioning your government to draft laws and so on.

Else what, you'll vote for another party? Both parties (in the US) take money from Big Tech, and they vote the same shit anyway. That will "show them" nothing. Especially since their stance on such laws is 1/100 of the things you vote a party/candidate about (so you will still vote for them if you agree on other matters).

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#114

Post by chrisco255 »

nexthash wrote: post #94
PostOnce wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"massive dependence" Switching from gmail to another provider isn't like living without electricity, it takes a couple of days updating some external accounts to reflect your new email; I did it. Buying shit from somewhere that isn't Amazon isn't exactly trekking through the jungle for 3 weeks. All you have to do is type in another domain. There is no shortage of non-Amazon sellers with similar prices. Switching from…

I hope you understand that this is all relative... what if you were in a situation where all of your friends/news are on Facebook? Where you don't have time to update 30+ accounts/subscriptions to reflect a new email address? Paying $500+ for an iPhone? Depending on the person, that is a hell of a lot of effort. If it wasn't, FAANG wouldn't be the empire it is today. It would be taking million user hits like WhatsApp…

Well, they got to where they are by being trusted at what they do. They have rapidly lost that trust, in my mind. Once a party violates some level of implicit trust, you have to distance yourself from that party. Big tech has shown their true colors. They will abuse their monopoly power to exploit politics, manipulate people, cut up and coming competitors off at the knees, and censor anything they don't agree with. This is not the web I signed up for. This is not the revolutionary open tech that kids like me that grew up in the 90s gushed about. This is a dystopian Orwellian nightmare. It's time to get off the ride.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#115

Post by bordercases »

burnte wrote: post #93
mastazi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook. My life has never been better. Minor inconvenience does not outweigh major improvements in my mental wellness. (Edit: I mention mental wellness because those products, and the ads they carry, are designed to be addictive.)

So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways. That, however, feels like victim blaming. There's a difference between a using a circular saw dangerously and a circular saw that is MADE with electrical failures that shock you. Let me give the e…

Google reads your e-mails to develop its ads. Psychological profiles are collated from every click you take on each of these platforms and pulled into ad brokerships. The people that are hired to do this profiling often have crossovers into government sectors, as this is just another form of surveillance. I am personally shocked (not necessarily appalled) at anyone feeling OK with this level of scrutiny being applied to themselves at all the times by government bureaucrats, or companies just looking to make a buck off of your behavior without you even knowing. We're past the point where anyone can claim ignorance of these facts.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#116

Post by gjvnq »

throwawayboise wrote: post #24

Opt out. No Google. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Amazon. You don't need them, you might even enjoy life more without them. You can't change how they operate. But you can change how you operate.

Let me get my dusty PDP-11 then... /s

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#117

Post by J_tt »

ArcVRArthur wrote: post #106

This is very disruptive to me. Our business chose to use Element because of the privacy and interoperability functions it afforded us through end-to-end encryption and the bridges feature (matrix.org/bridges).

I'm in the same boat here, at least on Android alternatives such as F-Droid exist, however I'm concerned about the repercussions for MDM, as in our case (intune) we go through the Play store.

My largest concern is if Apple follows suit, which could lead to large problems with our employees who use iPhones.

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#118

Post by GekkePrutser »

krastanov wrote: post #109
lawl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one? The one also made by Google, the one paid for by Google, ones of those based on the one made by Google, or the one made by the other smartphone OS owner with a walled garden?

I will bite: Firefox, the one that cares about privacy and open standards, even if it has a lot of income coming from a search bar deal with Google.

I think he covered that by 'the one paid for by Google' as the main income for Mozilla is the default search engine deal.

But I agree, FF is the best

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#119

Post by coldtea »

burnte wrote: post #93
mastazi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit Reddit, Amazon, Twitter, Google, Instagram and Facebook. My life has never been better. Minor inconvenience does not outweigh major improvements in my mental wellness. (Edit: I mention mental wellness because those products, and the ads they carry, are designed to be addictive.)

So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways. That, however, feels like victim blaming. There's a difference between a using a circular saw dangerously and a circular saw that is MADE with electrical failures that shock you. Let me give the e…

>So let me ask you a question, how were they negatively impacting your mental wellbeing? I ask this genuinely, because I have a tendency to feel these tools only negatively impact people who use them in stress-creating ways.

They use highly optimized and self-optimizing techniques and psychological tricks (including A/B testing, consulting experts in cognition, using dark patterns, and everything) to get you hooked on dopamine hits, make you jealoush of your timeline peers, anger you, milk your engagement etc.

The idea that "I'm different, these ads don't work on me" is basically the 21st century version of "I'm not addicted can't quit anytime" of the drug addict (not to mention that it's not just ads, but the feed that's problematic, from reasons that range from echo-bubbling to comparing yourself to 1000s of people you don't know but are your "friends" -- and even with actual friends, people used to have less visibility to their spending habbits, vacation photos, etc, not share everything including pics of their branch).

Re: Element (Matrix chat app) suspended from the Google Play Store

#120

Post by jtbayly »

J_tt wrote: post #117
ArcVRArthur wrote: post #106

This is very disruptive to me. Our business chose to use Element because of the privacy and interoperability functions it afforded us through end-to-end encryption and the bridges feature (matrix.org/bridges).

I'm in the same boat here, at least on Android alternatives such as F-Droid exist, however I'm concerned about the repercussions for MDM, as in our case (intune) we go through the Play store. My largest concern is if Apple follows suit, which could lead to large problems with our employees who use iPhones.

Recently I've been seriously considering finally ditching iPhone because I share the same concern. After all, Apple did the same to another company recently... so we know they are willing.
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