I can switch search engines, but I can't tell other people to go off Gmail. Email used to work, from its 7-bit days onward. It was one standard thing that you could rely on in the ever changing mess of messaging web apps and proprietary lock-ins. And now it's increasingly broken. I hope people realize that if they don't get a reply, perhaps it's because some machine somewhere decided for them that they don't need to know about it.
Schlagwort: Dezentralität
Silent Search.
Google Apps against Education.
If you are part of a group, don't assume that all the members are willing to use all the computer programmes or internet services that you use. When I participate in a group and, without any discussion, someone proposes we have a Skype or a Hangout, I realise that the person proposing it has not considered that there might be people who don't want to open a Skype or Gmail account. It is as though we wanted to force vegetarians to eat meat because it is more comfortable (or cheaper or whatever) to make a single plate according to the criteria of the acritical majority. That would be unacceptable, no? Well, in the same way, someone can refuse to use (or be used by) certain services. It is their right. The decision about which technologies to use is not only practical, it is also ethical.
Margarita Padilla: Technological Sovereignty: What are we talking about? in: Technological Sovereignty, Vol. 2
Intermarché.
We’ve taken the internet, something that represents a vast commons of decentralized servers and largely replaced it with the equivalent of hanging out in privately owned virtual shopping malls.
Nöffentlich.
The real threat comes with giant closed cyberspaces that disguise themselves as public spaces. Facebook, for instance. Many of its users think of it as a neutral public space where society comes together, and in fact Facebook often efficiently carries out that role. It is, nevertheless, closed and controlled.
Federate or Fool.
Once we know that, perhaps we can create a blind idiot God for the Internet.
Adam Ierymenko: Decentralization: I Want To Believe