I have fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem. It’s a walled garden but it’s a pretty nice walled garden, and of all the big tech companies, they are better about privacy (not perfect, but better) than most. I avoid Google like the plague and only use it when I have to. When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
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Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#12> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now. This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs ( https://blogs.hyvor.com/ ), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as…
Substack is both a blogging platform and a micro-social network with a feed and a subscriptions SaaS so really depends on what parts you want from it the most
Yeah, I haven't found any dedicated subscription-blog providers outside the US – but I definitely remember seeing at least 2 in the past!
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#13I have fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem. It’s a walled garden but it’s a pretty nice walled garden, and of all the big tech companies, they are better about privacy (not perfect, but better) than most. I avoid Google like the plague and only use it when I have to. When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
> When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
just untrue lol. people literally just believe any nonsense they read. in a pedantic sense any company, where you send things to them is just "going into a log somewhere to be monetized" if you mean having logs can help improve the product which makes said company money...
so, to narrow things down this is presumably about personalization - in which case that's obviously just untrue.
assuming it's in the pedantic sense, most logs at google are not directly monetized, nor are most logs at google even part of services that even roll-up to ads.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#14They moved from platform A to platform B.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#15> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now. This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs ( https://blogs.hyvor.com/ ), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as…
https://www.beehiiv.com/ is another one.
They appear to be based in New York, which is in the US. They're also not very privacy-friendly.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#16For me its going from $0 to $15 a month using Proton which feels way to high. Im cutting proton and switching to Proton free tier for email and Backblaze for storage. Getting a little $100 pc to put in my draw to handle hosting all the stuff i need. My budget is around $10 a month to cover all the tech NEEDS. I think its doable but I will need to pay with my time to learn about/setup a foss stack. I'll also need to p…
I don't think a $10 budget will suffice.
My tech needs arent huge. Email+email alias service, cloud storage for PC backups and syncing data across devices, VPN, server to host internet thangs, domain, mobile data. Yeah now that im laying it out $10 is not going to be enough but i'll try my best to work within the constraints and see what I can do. I'll probably do a need budget for $10 and a wants budget of $20.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#17They moved from platform A to platform B.
And platform B is basically a worse version of everything than platform A.
I admire the motivation though
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#18> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now. This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs ( https://blogs.hyvor.com/ ), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as…
https://ghost.org — Open-source run by a non-profit headquartered in Singapore.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#19I’m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative. However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15€) is hard to beat, I think. I get: - granular domain \ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.) - 2tb of google drive space - and now Gemini, which is quite nice It’s 2025, and I’m still finding it impossible t…
It’s far from impossible, you just have to prioritize your privacy at more than a few bucks a month.
Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year
#20They moved from platform A to platform B.
And platform B is basically a worse version of everything than platform A. I admire the motivation though
“Worse” is fully dependant on what you’re looking to get out of a product. I consider anything Google/Meta to be about as bad as it gets because I disagree with their business practices and value my privacy.