More and more people switching to DuckDuckGo as a default and using Google only when necessary would get the ball rolling. Gmail is pretty replaceable with any other email, although I can see many people not changing from it out of laziness.
Google drive apps are pretty nice, but I doubt most people use them much at all, and Microsoft/apple offer alternatives. Google maps can eventually be replaced if people started using the alternatives more.
It will take time, but seems doable if more and more people keep changing habits.
What about Vimeo? Or for a more federated approach, PeerTube?
From the last conversation I had around PeerTube, the main objection I got was that content creators would probably lose a bunch of traffic which they switched, which is true, but that's effectively the same argument as the hassle involved with switching off Gmail.
I don't know how to solve this problem.
When the network effect shifts, it does it gradually with long siphoning effects, not all at once.
People use gmail for free, and there are no network effects.
Content creators use YouTube due to its ability to sell ads, but I am not familiar with the alternatives to know if they are capable of handling the amount of people and ads YouTube serves. It seems like a more difficult problem than alternatives to email/maps/drive/search.
huh? There's a massive difference between those two things. YouTube provides discoverability for your content. Gmail does not. Besides the loss of existing viewers in a platform switch, creators would also lose a huge audience of potential viewers of their content both from recommendations and from search results. Sure, there are content creators who build up followings, but lots of people will get a handful of videos that become popular results for certain searches. Those come entirely from searches and "related" listings.
Further, changing emails doesn't require people emailing you to use a completely different client to do so.
I wish it wasn't true.
This fits me exactly, I ungoogled myself completely except for YT. There is no viable alternative, and I'd rather not watch TV again so I stick reluctantly with YT for now.
We collectively can by acting as technology shepherds for those around us, and providing better options. Not our job? I hear you. Technology is to be thought of as a tool, first of all--and a double-edged sword. I spent my high school years and beyond playing with it like a video game, but it's getting/gotten real.
In my experience they probably know who all of the potential shepherds are and have moats around them. There could even be instruments that isolate them via slightly "negative" biases that each seem legitimate when looked at through independent compartmentalized lenses, and amount to a "false light" being presented in search results through Algorithmic Fairness or similar. Their behavior could be manipulated as well, to look down upon those who they could help or encourage selfishness.
> they cannot be allowed to associate random photos with unrelated content without repercussions.
Whole heatedly agree. I'm experiencing various attacks from various parties; having spent 3 years homeless with half of that during the pandemic, I have indeed been physically isolated and thus had disproportionate affect from algorithms--"how am I presented to others?" is literally life or death, as there is no option for a physical presentation. My way off the streets before pandemic was to get retail jobs and save, but that is no longer possible without showers and with the "Simon Says" rules of pandemic in play. The algorithms literally own me.
> It's laughable how feudal, unaccountable, unreachable and unregulated the tech industry is
Studying law around some of these issues in recent years, "false light" might be the angle to attack with for these cases. A person experiencing literal identity theft, meaning ruin being laid to their "root identity" (physical body and legal fiction name), has had a false light painted about them to their associates by malicious parties; seems similar, albeit it could be stupidity or malice from big tech depending how the algorithm "views" a person.
A new personal view is that South Korea did it right by requiring ID to get online. I was appalled when my university friends told me in 2010ish (plus a SK friend's laptop was still confiscated at the airport upon return to the US). There is no way to fully recover a relationship damaged by a false light or impersonator, and effectively no way to get accountability unless we can get a service built around NSA's alleged data in Provo that can catch the baddies and create an impact report or similar. Still, many topics have a "toothpaste can't go back into the tube" nature about them, so one can only really move on from the damage without hope of reconnecting. IDs tied to everything could put the brakes on a lot of bad activity.
Concretely shepherds could start by distributing YubiKeys and RasPis, bringing back key signing parties, and starting RSS feeds. I didn't realize how rich I was as a techie until I had to go back to living on retail money. I'd have invested a lot more into my Day 1's if I realized how hard they have it--I went straight from my parents' house to a townhouse without renting by age 21, could've done more to rise the water for everyone.