Proprietary software and proprietary software-as-a-service appears to be convenient. Until it isn't.
#tyrannyofconvenience — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #tyrannyofconvenience, aggregated by home.social.
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En effet, le #SophismeDeLaSolutionParfaite = #SophismeDuNirvana = #SophismeDuToutOuRien c'est ce qui soutient la #TyrannyOfConvenience .
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophisme_de_la_solution_parfaite
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@UlrikeHahn As @Chip_Unicorn says, Element = frontend. Org = New Vector Ltd. In terms of ethics (vs #TyrannyOfConvenience) the main Matrix software is #AGPLv3 [1]; the protocol is open [2]; self-hosting is legal and ethical [3].
As @lavaeolus says, security tends to oppose convenience: there's a learning curve for E2EE.
I like #gomuks terminal; gomuks web is rapidly developing [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_%28software%29
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_%28protocol%29
[3] https://servers.joinmatrix.org
[4] https://github.com/tulir/gomuks -
Plz @superwuster, write an essay about how centralized technology in fiefdoms is dumbing down the population of convenience zombies. Make it an extension of your #TyrannyOfConvenience essay. Knowledge empowers. When people flock to a flagship (#FB, #LinkedIn, #Signal, #LemmyWorld, mastodon.social, etc) they choose the disempowerment that results from avoiding knowledge.
People /should/ grapple with things like #PGP key exchanges.
People who know enough to avoid the major tech giants still fuck this up by choosing the easy path (Signal, Lemmy.world, etc). Then they hypocritically tout the importance of #decentralization from their centralised Cloudflare platforms, effectively setting a poor example for the basic ideas ppl should hold in high esteem.
Even *in universities* students are clinging on to /easy/ tech. Google docs, facebook, MS Word (not LaTeX). The new culture of knowledge avoidance is a big component of the Tyranny of Convenience. We need a #TimWu essay to cover this -- to reach your massive influence of 28 followers (wtf?).
Should such an essay be written?
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@Maxfieldripken
As usual, ethical consumption is at odds with cost and conevenience. Ethical consumers of course make a sacrifice when prioritizing ethics.w.r.t cost, I’m lucky to be in a densely populated city so I can hand-deliver most of my letters by bicycle. The beauty of this is while I pay nothing, the shitty Microsoft patron (generally gov offices & utitility companies) who receives my letter has to buy postage to respond whenever response is required. So there is a bit of gratiifcation in this pushback approach. But indeed most people in sprawling areas must buy stamps for their own outbound correspondence.
w.r.t convenience, I will just leave the #tyrannyOfConvenience essay here:
https://unseminary.com/wp-content/uploads/TheTyrannyofConvenienceNYTimes.pdf
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@pattykimura Same here. Paper checks don’t get the respect they deserve because too many people are trapped in the #tyrannyOfConvenience. Paper checks avoid copious non-transparent data sharing and funnily enough they often move faster than electronic payments anyway. @marcan
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I often hold back on disclosing privacy tips because privacy advocates are so far outnumbered that it seems more likely that privacy adversaries will take action to thwart or shut down the angle / hack or facility.
Among the tiny demographic of privacy proponents almost none of them are committed to privacy. Trapped in the #TyrannyOfConvenience as articulated by Tim Wu. A majority of the so called pro-privacy crowd are ppl that complain as they login to Facebook (and make excuses for using it) ... or they blindly accept deceiving & compromised privacy theatre tools so long as they don’t require a change of habit. E.g. brainwashed to think #DuckDuckGo is aligned with the privacy movement. No, #DDG is just exploiting fools.
The sad state of it is evident simply by stepping into a #threadiverse c/privacy community, where a majority of posts come from accounts hosted on nodes like #lemmyWorld & #shItjustWorks even if the community itself is on a defederated node.
It’s hard to imagine privacy movements making much progress when the orgs that claim to have a privacy mission will litter their site with FB and Twitter then reverse proxy it through CF.
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#Wikimania2024 will violate remote participants' privacy [1] and security [2], according to a #WMF member who *finally* answered a question on the issue after 6 days of repeated attempts to get a straightforward answer [3].
The WMF member argues that this is a necessary compromise and that things were worse before [3].
#TyrannyOfConvenience #Wikimania #WikimaniaKrakow #WikimaniaCracow
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_%28software%29#Privacy
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_%28software%29#Security
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This is a #TyrannyOfConvenience issue.
Codes of conduct have started to become close to ubiquitous in academic conferences (my impression in astro).
If we could get software ethics into codes of conduct - making it clear that the choice of software and servers is ethically significant for the role of academic enquiry as part of the wider community, then #TyrannyOfConvenience arguments could start to become as unacceptable as bigotry.
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Finally got around to migrating all my non-trivial git repositories from MS/GH to #Codeberg - just before the 2FA-MS/GH-probably-will-require-your-telephone-number deadline. :) I'm keeping my account there since some communication [1] with #TyrannyOfConvenience people can still be useful.
@Gargron 's branch of Mastodon still has issue 22572 of #GiveUpGitHub migration unsolved [2].
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@sugar_in_your_tea About "good time to jump in": the small size of the lemmy dev community gives you a chance to shift off Microsoft to a community git forge e.g. #Codeberg [1] that aims at forge federation [2] *before* there's too much #TyrannyOfConvenience inertia. Mastodon devs are reluctant to even *discuss* giving up Microsoft [3].
@ulu_mulu @lemmy #GiveUpGitHub #forgefed #forgejo https://giveupgithub.org
[1] https://codeberg.org
[2] https://forgefed.org
[3] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/22572 -
@bonifartius That’s indeed the most sustainable option but quickly ignored in the land of #tyrannyOfConvenience (#TimWu). As you might have noticed from the two polls the drying rack is the winner in ~70% of the world outside the US but it’s a hard sell in the US. Hence the dehumidified closet approach. Heat pumps are an unexplained failure in the US but perhaps dehumidifiers are the answer.
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@freemo Not sure what ghr is, but indeed I was surprised as well. I was expecting some votes to just ban the most wasteful variety in order to at least steer the industry toward a more socially responsible path. It’s a small sample but Tim Wu’s #tyrannyOfConvenience essay seems to be playing out here.
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That is a problem that we have been having since Linux was invented on various fronts.
If we replaced journals as we propose, such authoring platforms would surely be part of the infrastructure (as we have been demanding for more than a decade now).
Until then, I am hesitant to waste my tax-payer funded time (and private nerves) on inadequate solutions.
It is a #TyrannyOfConvenience , I agree, but there is more to it, unfortunately.
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Sorry, but talking about reform while providing ourselves as zero-cost raw materials to #GAFAM to sell to advertisers doesn't make sense in this context, so your phrase "you can edit the doculent, if you want" is misleading.
You're using free-software resources, so please respect that and look through:
so that you can find e.g. a cryptpad that does *not* require people to violate their privacy.
No need to fall into the #TyrannyOfConvenience !
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@ostrich @aral #FuckCars. Even a privacy-respecting car is still inherently environment-disrespecting anyway. So yes, I am unwilling to live in areas where I can’t cycle or use public transport. I do vote w/my wallet & live with the limitations of being ethical. If ethical living were easy, the flood of unethical choices wouldn’t have such a strong presence. #tyrannyOfConvenience
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@bojkotiMalbona It would be interesting if you re-ran your 2020 survey, now, over two years later, with the Fediverse being bigger. My prediction is that the fraction of #TyrannyOfConvenience people would be higher, but the survey itself might help spark off awareness and evidence-based debate in the thread. Better be honest about what MS/Putin ("might is right") are doing than pretend that they don't exist.
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If you go the less convenient route, be sure to read Tim Wu’s #tyrannyOfConvenience for inspiration:
https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html -
CW: Mastodon app comparison
Instead of that person suggesting that people here in the #Fediverse violate their privacy and computer security by accessing #GAFAM, s/he might want to consider non-GAFAM software and servers, e.g. https://cryptpad.org .
See
for how to avoid GAFAM/birdsite.
@switchingsoftwareIf the existing list is licence-compatible, then someone could start off the free-world version on a cryptpad instead of GAFAM.
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Seems like a severe case of #TyrannyOfConvenience -itis. "It failed! It doesn't work! Fix it instantly! Or else!"
There have been other cases of recent arrivals who didn't think of looking at the /about page or didn't realise that the admin or contact might be via an email address rather than a Fediverse address. But were happy to learn. :)
A minimum of verbal/logical/text-management/web-navigation - and egalitarian human relations - skills are needed.
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Here we're on the Fediverse, what you call a "niche alternative". We're aiming at developing a community, not at selling people as raw material to advertisers.
Accepting the #TyrannyOfConvenience with a toxic organisation like Microsoft weakens our ecosystem.
Ethics in this context is not about jumping hurdles, it's about escaping from a gilded prison.
If you have software skills, consider contributing to #ForgeFed
- it's *not* a gh clone.
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#FediverseGrowth is going to keep accelerating:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63534240
Interesting: the journalist joined a commercially supported instance: https://mastodonapp.uk/about/more - two small(?) tech firms get indirect publicity as they host/fund the instance.
If ~90% of current birdsite users stick to the #TyrannyOfConvenience, then the flood could grow to 10% or so of (former) birdsite user base => ~20-30 million.
Exponential growth followed by saturation at 20-30 million in a few weeks or months?
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Creating a #GAFAM list defeats the point of shifting to Mastodon - part of the free world [1]. There's no need to invoke the #TyrannyOfConvenience :).
Have a look at
and you'll find how to avoid the #GAFAM walled gardens - e.g. use https://cryptpad.org instead of G docs.
The source of the switching.software webpage is openly decided by the community at https://codeberg.org/swiso/website - no secret Board Room decisions.
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Excellent Wikipedia=top-10 *and* transparent website+community talk by @legoktm :)
Very practical point on the #TyrannyOfConvenience :
> "But regardless of [the culture of transparency], people trend towards closed platforms. People want to use Slack instead of IRC, ... Google Docs instead of wiki pages. It can be difficult to constantly be the source of friction, being like 'Hey I know you shared a Google Doc with me, can you just post it on the wiki and I'll give you my feedback there?'"
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Meeting on GAFAM defeats the point of #OpenScience , which is not supposed to involve totalitarian organisations like Alphabet Inc/Google, and it defeats the point of opposing colonial exploitation.
See
to find ways of meeting online without sacrificing privacy and software security.
Should African scientists become raw materials for GAFAM to sell to advertisers?
Refuse the #TyrannyOfConvenience !
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This has a #tyrannyOfConvenience element to it. This is a good essay on the topic by #TimWu (the guy who coined the term #netNeutrality): https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html