I believe in an open internet, FOSS, privacy by default, etc. I migrated away from Google by self-hosting Nextcloud. I prefer messaging apps like Molly, SimpleX, Threema, Matrix, etc. over standard SMS. I love the Fediverse (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc.).
But everyone I live with and everyone I know simply refuses to take part. I can’t interact with them socially because they’re all on Facebook. I can’t communicate with them because they all use group texts for SMS/RCS. I feel like I’m living in a different part of the world and am completely disconnected from everything that’s going on around me (with the people I want to interact).
My question is: does anyone else experience this, and how do you reconcile it? I want to share photos and clever posts with my family but they aren’t on the Fediverse. I want to communicate securely with them but they only want to SMS. I want to share documents but they only use Google Docs.
There are people I’ve met on the Fediverse and through some secure messaging apps with whom I’ve struck up a rapport, but these are still (predominately) strangers, and I’d really like to involve the people I care about in these exciting new times. They just wont participate.
I feel like I’ve invited everyone in my family to go on a great, grand vacation away and I’m the only one who’s packed.
Google and other companies make it extremely convenient and easy, so you don’t need to be technically inclined to use their services and everyone already uses them. Asking someone to join the Fediverse requires them to understand what it is, and deal with the learning curve; if they aren’t technically inclined, they are almost certain to refuse, and even many technically capable ones don’t care enough.
Signal is a much better compromise; private enough that it isn’t creepy to use, and easy enough that anyone who uses WhatsApp can pick up without difficulty or friction. Even then, only a small percentage of the people in my life use it. It is what it is.
You can’t force people to care. The vast majority of people never even heard of FOSS, never heard of self-hosting (or even know what hosting is), and don’t get me started on the Fediverse… Most people don’t care about privacy either; my mother for example is the “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” type.
When you say “they refuse to take part”, it puts too much blame on people, you can’t expect people to do something that they don’t understand or care enough about. It’s like if I asked you to come with me to protest against something you’ve never heard of, but in order to understand what’s wrong with it, you need a long lecture and actually pay attention. Corporations spent hundreds of billions on making their services and products really convenient and easy, so they have to screw up really badly to get people to switch.
I don’t really blame them for not making a switch; I understand their stance/reasoning. It’s just depressing to be the one guy left out, like I don’t get to dance with anyone at the party because I don’t like the music.
You want them to download a specific app to talk to you while you refuse to download a specific app to talk to them.
Just sit on that for a bit. That’s exactly how they see this. It’s got nothing to do with privacy at all.
I get it, but at the same time, you shouldn’t let yourself be bitter about it, or it will soil your interactions with them. Enjoy your IRL interactions with them, and send them an email next time you want to contact them, since email is probably the only ubiquitous federated platform in the world, and it is likely to remain this way for a long time.