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> It's sad that your quality of life depends on Google or Facebook services.

Quality of life is not a binary, where you either 'have' it or not, so I don't think it makes sense to say "your quality of life DEPENDS on google or Facebook"

Many things make your quality of life a bit better, and some things make it a bit worse, but no one says they can't have a quality life without Facebook or google.

The person is saying that stopping using Facebook and google will slightly decrease their overall quality of life, but will have zero impact on Facebook and google.



I understand that.

I still maintain it's sad that removing Facebook/Google can have any significant drop in your quality of life. And by significant, I mean one where you're willing to debate about it.

I like to keep my happiness as far as possible from the services that some soulless multinational provides.


You say you don't want your life to depend on a soulless multinational corporation.... but I suspect you might not be aware of how much it does.

Do you see a doctor, or use any healthcare services? Or use any pharmaceutical products or cosmetics that are mass produced? Shampoo? Soap? Hand sanitizer?

Do you wear clothing that you didn't make yourself from raw cotton you made? Or shop at a store like Gap, Cotton On, Target, Zara etc?

Do you drive a car? Or take Uber? Or use something like a bus or car, or other vehicle made by a large multinational engineering company?

Do you eat any fast foods? Or eat at restaurants that use any produce or mass produced raw ingredients? Or use any kitchen utensils or kitchenware? Do you shop at say IKEA?

Or do you use electronics like a laptop, phone or desktop computer?

Or do you keep any of your money at a bank? Or use things like car insurance?

It slightly irks me when people claim they want to stick it to the man, and don't like "those corporations".

We have a Green party politician in Australia who lives off the grid, and grows his own produce. Whilst I don't agree with all his policies - I respect that he lives consistently with his beliefs.

If you're on HN - I'd posit that your life (like mine, and billions of others) is dependent on multinational corporations for our current quality of life.

If you don't agree with one of them, that fine, but often it's less to do with principles and more "their customer service is terrible" or "they didn't fix this one issue that is very important to me", or "I read on Reddit/FB/Techcrunch this terrible fact about them"


Maybe their quality of life is increased by not having to spend part of their life (and possibly money - I can't think of a free Gmail alternative that's not as bad as Gmail's practices) searching for services that are at least as good as what they currently use?


> I can't think of a free Gmail alternative that's not as bad as Gmail's practices

Protonmail comes to mind:

https://protonmail.com/


I like the company, but their email service is nowhere close to being a GMail alternative. A few things that are lacking -

1. Using standard IMAP/POP is only available for Paid users and only on the desktop. Not Mobile.

2. Conversation view is not implemented on their mobile clients. It has been over 5 years - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/sugg...

3. Their conversation view on the desktop groups messages based on the sender and not always the subject. It results in old conversations being grouped together.

They are working on all these issues, but till then, my productivity was impacted a lot by switching.


My happiness depends on all sorts of multinational. I depend on quick access to all sorts of medications, gasoline, shampoo, shipping, industrial food production, airplanes, and more. Why should technology be different?




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