alsothrownaway

Honest question: do tools like this even matter? We're all a few INNER JOINs away from having our entire lives known by data brokers. This seems to indicate that unless one changes their name and lives with the mole people, privacy is an illusion.

> Company litters thousands of billboards all over streets and sidewalks, creating city-wide eyesore / road hazard

> Citizens remove hazard from streets, profiting at company's expense

Isn't this the definition of poetic justice?

It's strange to witness what is essentially a working version of Google Hangouts and Google Docs ... from fifty years ago.

We're definitely doing something wrong.

I went with Namecheap as my Gmail replacement. I can use my own domain and setup was instant. The interface and admin panel are very clean which is nice, but $10/mo for one inbox doesn't really say "cheap" to me. Overall I am quite happy, though.

I think it's constructive to point out that maybe the entire project, being a "hack" of sorts that tends to breed more hacks and more debt, ultimately isn't useful or valuable. The idea is wonderful, but in practice I still have to maintain cross-platform code that has nothing to do with wireup, and honestly think everyone should seriously consider writing portable code and plugging it into truly native projects.

React Native multiplies the complexity of a project so much that IMHO it completely negates its own usefulness.

As someone who has been in your shoes to a lesser degree, here are some things I learned:

It is best to not upgrade your lifestyle at all, but instead to use your position to bring broken people out of the pit. Here is why:

- 1. It is better to end the suffering of someone else than to make your own already-awesome life slightly better.

- 2. If you lose everything like I did, you will have actually lost nothing and only gained friends and good deeds.

- 3. Humans are insanely envious creatures. If anyone figures you out, they will most likely hate you and secretly hope it all burns. Before this, I never experienced the butt-end of envy. It can be so isolating; even if you are the nicest person.

One other thing: Don't completely fall into the lifestyle and mentality of doing whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. Maintain a connection to some kind of job or responsibility where your reputation is on the line; something where there is accountability. It will be incredibly difficult to return to "normal life" if something ever goes wrong.