Fighting for your rights is usually not the easy path, yes. It's been like that since forever.

Well, we gotta choose our battles, right? It's easy to get collective support for visible oppression and fascism. Everyone sees it on the news. It's hard to get support for "lemme use a smartphone that isn't apple or android." the average person doesn't care.

Not saying that we should just give up. But as the above poster said, it's a luxury that takes a lot of time and resources.

> It's easy to get collective support for visible oppression and fascism. Everyone sees it on the news.

Do they? News is usually the first thing that is replaced by propaganda.

But yes, everyone chooses the battles they wish to fight. None are easy.

Perhaps, but a recent example is ICE in Minnesota. The administration tried its best to spin it to match its propaganda but many people saw through it.

Yes that is correct. So what do you suggest people do? What is a realistic way to move the needle? Because I can tell you now that (as I detailed in another comment) asking someone to change their banks, utilities, etc. to accommodate their smartphone choice is not a serious suggestion, nor is asking everyone to wage war with all the services they engage with. They’re simply not going to do it no matter how many passionate speeches or flippant comments you throw out there. They’re going to buy the thing that solves the immediate problem of not having access to critical services in their lives. If their amazing open source phone can’t pay their bills, it’s going in the bin.

To be clear I want the same thing you do. But just going “do it it’s important” is not going to make it happen.

> Not everyone has the time and resources to battle their utilities and bank(s).

They do, they just don't want to. Typing a short letter and mailing it is very little effort. Less so with AI these days.

An AI generated letter isn’t going to get my utility company to drop their explicitly chosen practice of blocking VPN’s.

These aren’t oversights, these are deliberate practices.

'AI generated' is irrelevant here, they wouldn't know and it's just a time saver in response to the 'people don't have enough time' excuse.

That's a weird one though, if you have alternatives you could always switch.

Not sure where you live but in much of California, there are no alternatives for most utilities. Water, gas, electric often only have one singular provider in many regions.

Fair enough, although barring VPN use is quite a bit different from forcing an app that requires Play Services or iPhone. A VPN isn't as legitimate a need to pay a utility bill in the same way paying without an Android or iOS phone can be.

My only alternative is to not have natural gas

Fair enough, although barring VPN use is quite a bit different from forcing an app that requires Play Services or iPhone. A VPN isn't as legitimate a need to pay a utility bill in the same way paying without an Android or iOS phone can be.

I don’t see why not. It entirely depends on why someone needs a VPN. And I also shouldn’t need to justify it regardless.

> I don’t see why not. It entirely depends on why someone needs a VPN.

Nah, not really. Using a VPN is a luxury, a preference. You're arguing that using a VPN should be a right in a discussion about people not being forced to use specific Apple or Google services, which is an entirely different thing.