Didn’t have many subscriptions (all US are cancelled) and was mostly eating Canadian food already. Swapping now what else is left … what now? I am so mad at the USA I need something else to take my anger out on.
It’s a hard one but next is to leave their platforms as much as possible.
I’m currently De-googling / de Microsoft-ing and it’s hard but feasible.
If you’re not ready to leave Facebook, follow the guide John Oliver’s team put out.
Otherwise, go see local comedians / bands or buy their stuff to support them, stuff like that
Sounds like you’ve basically got yourself covered. Beyond that, I’d recommend just trying to make sure your current methods are sustainable (IE, you won’t have to switch back in a year) and trying to find ways to help others.
Some other ways the can help reduce US influence off the top of my head, ordered roughly from least to most difficult:
- Do your research and vote
- Use networked platforms (like the Fediverse) more, to help them compete with big american tech
- Promote Canadian or non-US alternatives
- put together detailed resources to help others boycott US products (IE, blog posts about how you addressed specific issues or infographics explaining the alternatives to common american products.)
- Join local groups to become more connected with your community
- Volunteering
- Becoming involved in politics, be it helping campaign for important causes or running yourself.
Yes, a lot of these aren’t directly targeting the US, but the stronger Canada is, the less power the US has over us.
On it!
I’m seconding the part about sharing your knowledge. I’d love to do this but don’t know where to start.
I recently heard on the news as I was talking to my Grandmother that there are people who are boycotting shows that take place in the US. I am not there yet but I am not going to start watching new series that take place in the US.
Someone already mentioned apps, but another one to look at is cloud storage and email services, and switching to local storage(ie, hard drives) and/or non-US services if possible.
I personally changed my web host and domain name in protest. Instead of reannlegge.com it is reannlegge.ca.
It is a simple blog for me to scream into the wind.
Yeah, I still have a gmail address 🙈 it’s hard to move. I’ll take my time with that one. So much work. Cloud storage I moved to sync. I only have some small stuff in iCloud. More like a download folder. Homepage was already hosted in Canada.
I have a gmail account only to watch YouTube, I wish there were real alternatives to youtube but there is not. It took me a long time to get off of gmail, I wanna say mor then a few months because something would come into the mail that I had forgotten to change so I changed it to a hide my email address. Now I am trying to take all of my hide my email addresses and move them over to proton.
If you have any savings, investments, retirement funds, etc., make sure they’re not invested in US companies.
Did that too. I still have a global one but it’s only 9% US and performing well so I left it.
One that surprised me is how many apps etc are American. Even free apps usually profit by selling your data etc. So, worth taking the time to try and find non American digital substitutes.
A huge proportion of America’s economy is actually digital services.
Other stuff you can do is write to local grocers. If they’re labelling Canadian products, thank them and maybe ask if they can highlight all non American food. If they aren’t labelling, ask what their plans are
I went through my apps too. I am already careful with what I use and always check what data they collect. I even went so far and left shit reviews on uber, Netflix, Disney, anmazon, prime video, prime music etc. Apps. Anything that I could think of and had downloaded and subscribed to at some point. This gets me into a whole new level of petty. Yeah maybe I start writing politicians to get of Twitter (oh I should leave a shit review on that one too!) and grocery stores. I did send London Drugs a ton of suggestions for products already. 😬
Awesome!
Maybe it’s letter writing time? I bet there are a lot of stores in your area that could use the moral.support of a letter urging them to reduce their American goods, flag non American ones etc.
Or, if you don’t mins social media, joining bluesky (twitter alternative) or whatever that instagram alternative is? (More users => more growth => meaningful competitor.)
Yeah I am thinking letters but I am not a fan of writing. I am on Mastodon which is definitely not US. And here, Lemmy isn’t either.
Totally fair! As much as we hate AI, maybe you could use deepseek or somesuch to get the majority of the letter written and then edit and send as necessary? Honestly though, even a couple lines to a corporate contact email address etc works!
Ugh then I rather write myself haha. It doesn’t have to be much, you are right.
There’s Crave I think? But the deal ain’t that great. There’s a LOT of ads and they’re extremely LOUD.
And the subscriptions are expensive. I’m not going to pay 22$/month just to stop having ads. I don’t need the 4k streaming because my TV doesn’t have that resolution. Besides I only have a 30mbps internet connection that’s already costing me almost 80$. (I should shop around now that I think about it. 80$ is hella expensive for 30mbps)
I have only heard bad things about Crave, if you want you can go to a channels app and watch show the day after they air. If you do not have an ad blocker the ads get repetitive very fast.
Yeah, I was watching it from my NVidia Shield and there’s no adblock on there. It’s terrible.
I’m honestly thinking of getting some kind of small Linux box for the TV, but I need something that works with a remote preferably.
The lineup isn’t great, but the worst part is the app experience.
We had crave for a bit over Christmas. Wasn’t overly impressed
I feel ya…when capitalism is already such a cancer that I already participate as little as possible, boycotting becomes harder because I was already not giving the parasite class my money.
Right?! I am feeling like I don’t have much leverage because I am not subscribed to that much and have less to drop. Probably a good thing (I know it is) but feels a little lack luster right now in terms of action I can take.
This is a list of initial 3rd party scripts the cbc.ca website lists in Ublock. Akamiedge is Microsoft and google is well Alphabet and are both US corporations.
Maybe start complaining to your MP that tax dollars are funding US companies through CBC, and write to CBC to advise them to revamp their websites to not use US tech company infrastructure.
The CBC has me miffed right now too. What was that shit program about 51st state???
How are you doing on personal hygiene items like toothpaste, mouthwash, soap, shampoo, et alia?
Yup covered that. Still finding the right shampoo but I have another brand ordered. Canadian of course.
Out of curiosity, which toothpaste and mouthwash have you found? I got a Canadian toothpaste, but am not thrilled with it, and am still looking for a mouthwash that does the job.
I don’t use mouth wash. I use a water flosser and brush my teeth. Right now I am trying green Beaver toothpaste and Tanit toothpaste tabs. Not a fan of either really but I am not tossing them out. I’ll try a couple more. Which one did you try?
Have you considered a vacation to mar-a-lago?
