Asklemmy

44151 readers

1545 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

134

Free Internet Non-Believers (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's easy to say, but it feels to me as if I have to make a choice between engaging and interacting with the people I love or adhering to my beliefs about how I should manage/protect my information. It's a difficult spot to be in and it's neither fair that I should have to make that choice nor fair that I should have to force it on others. That's what's bothering me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I’m gonna tell you what you’ve probably been told a million times before. Life ain’t fair. Never has been, never will be. You know it, I know it.

You always have choices to make and each choice bears with it consequences that you must be willing to endure. In the end, you have to decide what’s more important to you. Do you care more about interacting with your loved ones on the internet or your private information?

It’s a loaded question in either direction. Of course my original comment was easy to say and difficult to exact in practice. That’s what it means to have principles you stand for.