Withdraw Support to Tech Oligarchs

There is a life after Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Amazon etc.

See also: Password protected page with contact information.

I have spent some significant time to delete my contents in all the META social media and messengers and to cancel subscriptions / memberships:

  • Twitter: I deleted my Twitter Account immediately when Elon Musk bought the platform. That was actually the easiest since I had not used it for posting, only sometimes looked at tweets that were linked in other platforms.
  • Threads: This was very easy too, since I had not posted much on Threads. Gone quickly.
  • WhatsApp: I only subscribed to WhatsApp because it is the main platform for communication in Africa, and also used quite a bit by my project partners in Southeast Asia. I send messages to all my active contacts there where I can be found in the future (see below) and then deleted it.
  • Instagram: I deleted all instagram posts and comments. The likes were very resistant to being killed first, but I managed to do it a day later.  My presence on Instagram will stay for a while longer, in hibernation mode, just to let my friends know where I can be reached now.
  • Facebook: This is the most difficult one since there is currently no replacement of the Groups and the Marketplace with a good following. I deleted all my contents on Facebook, unfollowed the irrelevant groups and posted a message where I can be reached now (see below).

These took some effort and signing off the platforms was accompanied by some serious separation anxiety. I saw a lot of friends and public figures doing the same and moving to some of the platforms below, which made it a bit easier.

  • Amazon: I had two accounts on Amazon, one international one and one for the German market. I did not use them often, a few times in the Philippines because I trusted it more than Lazada, Shopee and Alibaba or other alternatives. but in the meantime I have managed to determine quite well who is a decent supplier on those alternative online shops, and most articles you can buy on Amazon are also available in those. I am not sure yet what happens to the few Kindle e-books I had bought on Amazon when you don’t have an account anymore. Once I clarified that my Amazon accounts will be gone too. Luckily my e-book reader is not a Kindle.
  • Other US based services: I deleted my accounts in TripIt, Dropbox, Github (see below)
  • Work in progress, deletion of: Flickr (already cancelled the subscription), Youtube, (see below)

So initially it appeared to be tougher than I thought, and it took significant time and effort, especially for saving my contents before deleting. But it was if fact very liberating. I can now use social media without advertisement and can block haters and liars easily, so my new social media experience is a bit like in the early days of those social media when they were not yet totally focussed on making the billionaire owners richer.

There are alternatives!!

A former colleague said when I terminated my Twitter account: “But you reach most people on Twitter.” During the Third Reich almost all Germans were reached through the Volksempfänger with Göbbels Propaganda too, the NSDAP had almost total reach. But did reach justify listening to the propaganda? Like the resistance back then, which unfortunately failed, we need to build up the non-billionaire owned social media and exchange platforms before there is no possibility to do it anymore.

Social media alternatives

There are several alternatives for social media sites. I am not going into a lot of technical descriptions here, my main criteria for choosing a site were:

  • Advertisement free
  • Open source (so algorithms can be checked)
  • Decentralization in hosting, ideally hosting outside the US (with the shitshow happening now in the US I lost any trust in institutions and companies in that country)
  • Possibility to monetize postings (just in case if in the future I would create contents that people are willing to pay for)
  • Reasonable user size, with some users I know, upwards trend in new user subscriptions
PlatformAdvert freeOpen sourceDecentralizedMonetizationOwnership, HostingUsers
MastodonyesyesyesnoWorld widelimited, increasing
Blueskyyesyes??plannedBenefit corporation, USA30 mio. increasing
SubstackyesNoNoYes

For professional purposes LinkedIn is my preferred choice.
It belongs to Microsoft.

My clear favorite in terms of my criteria is Mastodon. It “is an open source, self-hosted, social networking service. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation which allows users to communicate between independent Mastodon instances and other ActivityPub compatible services.” (Wikipedia) The downside right now is that it still has a limited number of users, but it is increasing. I feel it is more difficult to understand and set-up than the other platforms, so I don’t assume that the user base will grow very fast.

Bluesky has a bigger user base (30 million by January 2025) and feels pretty much like Twitter in its early days, when I still used it. It puts user control over algorithms, you can block people easily, but that might have the danger that you end up creating your own echo chamber. But you control it, and not revenue driven revenue advertising algorithms. It is run by a company in the US, so that constitutes a risk. Bluesky Social PBC is a benefit corporation a type of for-profit corporate entity whose goals include making a positive impact on society, and not to generate shareholder value, so on principle that is a good thing.

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco. Substack users include journalists, subject-matter experts, and media platforms, few of its newsletters publish original reporting; the majority offer personal writing, opinion pieces, research, and analysis. (Wikipedia)
I like the concept and a lot of the contents I have assessed so far, Substack has very light content moderation and also allows Nazi newsletters to be published, so I will be observing it very carefully and might quit it again.

Messaging alternatives

Finding a replacement of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger is actually very easy. The downside is that they are lacking the integration with alternative social media sites for now.

Signal offers end-to-end encrypted voice calls for free in free and open source software on all platforms. The only data it collects from its users is the mobile telephone number that is needed for registration. Signal was endorsed by Edward Snowden.

Viber is used a lot in Southeast Asia by businesses and individuals.
In 2022, Rakuten Viber won a Security Award, by test.de, a tech firm based in Germany where there are over 3 million Viber users.

I use Skype mostly for calls to landlines abroad. It also does  videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debit-based calls to landline and mobile telephones (over traditional telephone networks), and other features.

Line is a freeware app and service for instant messaging and social networking, operated by the Japanese company LY Corporation. It became Japan’s largest social network in 2013 and it is also popular mainly in Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand. (Wikipedia)

I have a Telegram account, but because of their history of hosting groups like ISIS and far rights I am sort of reluctant to use it. However, if somebody does not have any of the other messengers listed here, we can use Telegram.

Social Media and Video Conferencing

For professional purposes LinkedIn is my preferred choice.
It belongs to Microsoft.

For Video conferences Zoom

For Workspace chat and Video Conferences. Teams. However, it sometimes has problems to start up on my MacBook, so I actually prefer ZOOM.

And, of course, with other Apple users: Apple FaceTime

Old school communication

And of course there are email, SMS and telephone

GMail: Work – deleted; personal – never used

Yahoo: Deleted

GMX: Good, but not needed – deleted

Outlook (comes with the MS subscription): Not used

For email I have a subscription to one of the German service providers in combination with our homepages. As e-mail client on the laptop and the mobile phone I use Apple Mail

Last not least there is our travel blog travel.magayon.de , of which this page is a post, a very traditional web site that I will use more to post stories. 


Getting rid of Other US Based Services

Amazon

I had two Amazon accounts, one for Germany and one internationally. As soon as I have figured out what to do with my few e-books I bought there, I will delete both accounts. Maybe a bit more difficult to do shopping for some difficult to get items, but there are many alternatives, in particular buying at the “OEM” shops.

Maybe I will just forget about the Kindle books, I read them already.

Why?

Tech billionaires totally flip flopped when it became clear that the Republicans would win the election. In most other countries their behavior would be called corruption.

Cartoon draft: Ann Telnaes

See also: NPR article

In the name of “free speech” they have removed content moderation and also allowed previously banned criminals back to their platforms.

In addition, filtering of contents so that you only see what is in your echo chambers and advertisements have become unbearable in recent months.

DropBox

Yea, sorry, you had to go too.

I will be using pCloud for sharing files in the future.

TripIt

Since 2012 I have used TripIt to manage my work related and personal travel. It is a great service. It downloads flight details, links to your calendar, send you alerts etc. I had more than 70 trips logged in there. But: While it is owned by SAP, its data offices are based in the US. It can therefore be assumed that the data is also stored there.

Downloaded all the trips and deleted my subscription (Feb. 7, 2025)

Alternatives: I always planned my personal travel, like home leaves, the traditional way using, spreadsheets, the calendar and documents, all shared with fellow travelers. Even when had TripIt entry for a personal trip. For the few trips I do per year now, this will do. I might even re-activate my Filofax.

FLICKR

I had around 12,000 photos on Flickr. It was basically my primary place for photos, when needing one on a home page or blog, I just embedded the Flickr Link. I was happy to pay the US$ 40 / 2year subscription fee to go above 1,000 pictures of the free version. Then Flickr was sold to another company and the fee jumped to US$ 80 per year, a four fold increase. Corporate greed.

I deleted 11,001 photos and just kept the one that are linked to in other pages. Cancelling the Flickr pro subscription was the next step. I will replace the links over the next months to links on photos on pCloud and then cancel my free Flickr subscription too.

Google

I never liked Google. This whole idea of my data being the payment for a “free”, advertisement sponsored service creeped me out from the beginning. When my employer switched from Microsoft Office to Google Docs, I had to use it for work. Work – emails were also hosted by Google.

When Youtube was bought by Google, my personal Youtube account was converted into a Google account. I used it only for youtube, not for other Google products. I have quite a few videos on Youtube, they are also linked in our travel blog. I have to find an alternative and move the videos to another place.
So far pCloud looks good as a replacement.

Microsoft Office / Microsoft 365

For now I need to retain it because I am still working as a consultant every now and then and it is the de-facto standard for business.

Microsoft Cloud: I have 1TB as part of the subscription, but I only use that for work related files. No personal data / files.

Others

  • Github data stored in the US – deleted, Feb. 6, 2025