One Day without Big Tech: Plan

I’ve been thinking about trying one day without “big tech”, to quantify how much everyday life relies on it, distinguish between what’s absolutely needed and what’s irrelevant, and understand “rights” (who really “owns” the content/service/etc.). After this, I may further try a week with only Free Software.

So here goes the plan:

• Devices
  • No Kindle
  • No iPhone or iPad. Need to fully turn them off, otherwise there’s still a sense of “being connected” and it’s inevitable to see notifications. And this implies no apps.
  • Compromise on laptop: I’ll have to use my laptop with Windows 10, as I’m too lazy to set up dual boot Ubuntu until now. But I’ll restrict the software used and websites accessed.
• Software (locally installed on PC, as I’ll turn off both phones and tablets)
  • No WeChat.
  • No Telegram (I don’t want to argue whether it counts as “big tech”, but one day away from it is nice by itself so why not).
  • No Spotify.
  • No HomeBudget (I’m already too lazy to record transactions daily).
  • No Dropbox (turn off auto-sync).
  • No MS suite (Office, and turn off OneDrive).
  • No Google Earth.
  • I’ll need to use VSCode and WSL. And Adobe Reader.
• Websites
  • Google related
    • No YouTube.
    • No Google (I’m already searching with DDG for a large portion of queries).
    • No Google Translate (just compare with textbooks when studying Korean).
    • No Google Maps (so pick a day I don’t have to drive to an unfamiliar place).
    • No GMail (it’s long due that I set up my own email server).
    • No Google Calendar.
    • No Google Drive.
  • SNS: No Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
  • No Reddit.
  • No VLive.
  • No Douban or GoodReads.
  • No Amazon.
  • No Yelp.
  • No Netflix/HBOMax/Viki/Bilibili.
  • No Medium.
  • I will still use GitHub.
  • I will not avoid using websites hosted on AWS/GCP/Azure/etc.

What I anticipate:

• One challenge is listening to music. I don’t have a CD player. The only music I can listen to will be the digital album I purchased (“Kill This Love”), and some pirated music I downloaded long ago.
  • Richard Stallman advocated to buy books from physical stores, with cash. I’ll probably consider the same for music, buying either physical CDs or downloadable MP3s.
  • When thinking about this, I realize it’s not worth compromising so much info (what I listened to, at what time, on which device, at which location, etc.) for the supposed benefit of streaming. Not to mention other things those companies will possibly do.
• The same goes for videos.
• I’ll miss “stories” on Instagram. Those are FOMO manipulation at its finest.
• I’ll have to inform my immediate family beforehand, and let them know how to reach me.

I’ll target next Saturday, and see how it goes.