Updated: March 19, 2025
Have you noticed how the digital landscape has become harsher lately? More and more companies are turning brazen, even outright hostile with the consumer, even with their own people (employees). Mass surveillance, arbitrary Return to Office (RTO) mandates, shameless data grabs in the name of "AI", forced telephone waits even if there are no queues, ruthless terms of use, bricked devices. The list is endless and bleak.
So what can the little person do? The common peasant, like you and me? What can we do in the face of this ugly, shameless onslaught on our senses, sensibility and dignity? Well, we common peasants, don't get much say in how the world runs. But we do have one winning card. We can choose when and if and how we spend what money we have. Perhaps the companies can push their pointless solutions onto people, but they cannot force people to spend money on pointless solutions.
Credit: Photo by Jamie Haughton on Unsplash.
Say no to stupid and greedy
It is almost impossible, and perhaps even counterproductive to try to fully disconnect oneself from this modern world. If you want to interact with the society, you must use a whole bunch of digital products. And sometimes, you must use these under duress, knowing there's no better alternative, not without actively harming your own interests and ability to function. But even so, you can still resist the greed rush.
I've mulled about this problem many times over the years. There's always something new that comes up, triggering my indignation. Each time, I find new ways to improve my privacy and frugality stance. I don't want to make myself into a techno hermit. That's useless. But I make it harder for the greedy companies out there to milk me.
Let me give you a few examples of I exercise my peasantly power. About a year back, Amazon sent me second-hand routers when I bought and expected to receive new ones. Not buying there anymore save for books. Now, they also recently announced that you won't be able to download your Kindle books manually, via USB. I decided my next ebook reader won't be Kindle anymore, and I'm saying this as a published author. I'm gonna buy a different device, if any really, and definitely buy real, paper books from local stores, as much as I can. Prime canceled, too.
Cars don't offer normal, sane controls for climate and such? Not buying. Ever. I'd rather buy a 20-year-old second-hand car that smells of cigarette smoke than a car that doesn't have an intelligent, safe layout in the cabin. That says a lot about much I detest this monkeyism called touch.
I decided not to buy Lenovo laptops after my IdeaPad 3 came preloaded with tons of annoying "apps", and similarly, I won't do Samsung smartphones ever again, as my A54 is ultra-annoying. The ecosystem is designed to be intrusive. I've had it for a year and a half now, and I still need to keep taming it. Not worth my time.
HP's choice to add the time wait for callers convinced me not buy their hardware ever again, either. I never had any bad personal experience with the company, but its recent "go to our AI chatbot online" approach put me off their business forever. The same goes for Roku and their testing home screen ads. Nope.
Google's SafetyCore is another example. I'm still wondering if to get a Pixel and put GrapheneOS on it, or go with a completely different Android vendor, like Fairphone, or perhaps even use the iPhone. Microsoft insists on online accounts for Windows 11? Nope, I don't want that. Acronis turned True Image into a subscription service, nope, not buying ever again. No more perpetual licenses for SketchUp? I'll keep using 2017 through WINE in Linux for eternity, or as long as Linux makes it possible to do so, which I hope will be for eternity.
Apps I didn't ask for, no more auto-updates. And no, Kimosabe, you don't get to decide about legal rights and claims.
In the last two years, I've almost completely stopped buying online. Yes, it takes more time and effort to find the equivalent merchandise in local stores, but hey. I'm doing what little I can to make sure the world doesn't become 100% stupid. I pay with cash, too, if possible.
Now, you don't have to go all indignant, all the way. Sometimes, there may be pragmatic reasons to use this or that solution. But you can still play it cool. You can always postpone or delay potential replacements, or minimize your costs. In other words, buy only when you need it, not when the greedy companies want you to buy, for entirely arbitrary reasons. Your purpose in life is not to be someone's stepladder for a fat annual bonus. Nope.
For example, I recently refreshed two of my ancient laptops. In both cases, I simply changed the mechanical storage with 70-dollar SSD. The systems run latest, up-to-date Linux distributions. They are both still reasonably fast, and should continue to serve me well for years. One machine is from 2014, the other from 2015. Now, I know, few people have the expertise to replace hardware, install Linux, or both. But if you're a techie, you can help. Why should I buy brand new laptops if the old ones do the job?
The same goes for any gadgetry and peripherals. As a matter of principle, I won't buy any Bluetooth headphones. Not only do I hate the concept, they are all overpriced. A 5-dollar USB-to-audio-jack will do the trick. I will keep using the same crusty wired earphones I got for free with some smartphone back in 2013 or so, when they still gave you things like that (and chargers and cables). No need to throw away perfectly good stuff just because greedy companies want your money. Nope.
No connectivity nonsense, no battery replacement, no drivers, nothing.
On my desktop, I'm still happily using a 2011 ten-dollar keyboard (on which I typed 15 million words so far). The mouse is relatively new, from 2018, but it's still the simple cheap variety. No fancy stuff, no need. Microsoft basic keyboard and mouse, if you're wondering. My desktop headset is from way back in 2005, and it cost me only about nine dollars, if I recall. Great quality, great sound. Plantronics, as it happens.
I do buy myself new hardware here and there. Like the Slimbook Titan and Executive machines. I chose the small vendor because they are nice, helpful, they offer Linux machines out of the box, and while the systems cost more than equivalent mainstream boxes, I am willing to pay that extra for the experience. After all, the money I saved not spending on nonsense can be invested buying things I care for. I'd rather have Slimbook earn some profit than giving it to some big company that will then try to tell me how more ads are in my benefit, and that I should pay extra for the privilege of using AI or similar nonsense.
I know I'm not alone. Windows 10 is still used on two thirds of all Windows machines, less than a year before its mainstream EOL. People don't want to buy over-expensive "AI PCs", because they are exactly that. A financial penalty for no benefit. In fact, they make their would-be users less productive. Even the common person isn't buying into this so-called "AI" nonsense. And why should they? Can AI do the laundry or wash the dishes? Can it take the trash out? Can it do any of the mundane, boring chores in people's lives so that people can actually have more free time to do fun things? Nope.
I talked about digital assistants in a separate article some time back. This new crop is just as useless. But so many companies have gone balls deep into the "AI" story, they are getting angry and desperate that people aren't buying into this hype, and will even try to force people to use these crap solutions. I found Gemini added to Messages on my Samsung A54, as I wrote in my sixth report. Did I ask for it? No, I didn't. Typical MBA-flavored turdonics.
But, but, but, Dedo, growth!
Nah. You can't have 20% year-on-year growth in sales of whatever when the world population grows at a fraction of this figure. Unsaturated markets, sure. But PCs, smartphones too recently, cars, the whole digital space, it's all quite mature. In 2020-2021, people suddenly "discovered" they don't need to refresh their laptops every 3-4 years. Gone are the days where you actually needed to get the new article, because the old one has become slow and unreliable or had been so vastly outpaced by technological progress so quickly. There can't be infinite growth. But the companies expect you to keep buying more, more, more, and they will blame you if you don't.
In the automotive space, people asked for safer, more reliable cars. They got them. So why should they replace their cars at the same frequency as they did in the past if their cars are now more reliable? Funnily enough, have you noticed that the car market sort of peaked 10 years ago, and that the lack of growth coincides with the introduction of "smart" infotainment systems, with too much touch, too much phone pairing, and other nonsense of this kind?
So you may ask yourself, well, if I don't "contribute" to all these companies out there, won't we have a recession on our hand or something? Well, ask yourself this: in what ways did you benefit during the golden years of massive growth? You didn't. Everything is more expensive, more intrusive. So there's no reason to play along, is there. It's already happening.
People aren't buying as much as they used to, so we now have these supposed crises on our hands. It doesn't take much. As a very crude, very relatable example, in the hardware space, even if just a handful of companies delays (not even completely abandons) their PC fleet refresh by as little as one quarter, you have doom and gloom predictions sprouting all over the place. In some ways, the lack of "material movement" hurts everyone. But the peasants are so fed up with being disrespected and treated like garbage by these greedy companies, they will gladly see them suffer, even if that means things being slightly worse off for everyone, peasants themselves included.
And that, my friends, is the sweet definition of Schadenfreude.
Conclusion
This is a glorious day, innit, guv. Not only did you learn how to behave in the times of gung-ho economy, you now also understand the true, deep meaning of the German word schadenfreude, largely considered untranslatable (to most languages). Indeed, if life gives you MBA nonsense, don't cooperate. You have zero obligation toward any company that treats its customers with utter disregard for privacy, basic human dignity and some common sense fairness. It's okay to make huge profits. After all, companies have exploited the common peasant since the dawn of civilization. There's no need to be all smug about it. You can at least pretend to care.
You will have also noticed a new modus operandi. Companies will come out with something totally outrageous, by accident or through "misunderstanding" so to speak, like, for instance, Mozilla's terms of use and the whole worldwide license thingie, or the aforementioned HP call wait thingie. But then, when people get really upset, the companies will walk back the decisions, and it will appear as if they are magnanimous, and/or listening to feedback. This is like slapping someone in the face and then saying you're sorry. Don't allow that. Bear the grudge, be the lesser man. Be the peasant. Remember, and take your petty vengeance. Embrace Schadenfreude. The end.
Cheers.