I don't like the idea of moving from google's ecosystem to proton. While they're better, ecosystems tend to get locked down or change for the worse.I'm not planning to repeat the google cycle. I got my own domain for email, bitwarden for passwords, firefox forks for browsing, and many other stuff to get off google. Also I realised that stuff like contacts, notes, calendar don't really need to be on the cloud, but I'm planning to self host some services like that, mostly for the nerd in me.
It’s 2025, and I’m still finding it impossible to leave :(
* note: I use Google Workspace as a personal account, with just one (my) user, because that gives me access to the domain and management tools listed above
Or in this case have a look at the Google Graveyard and/or those many stories of users that lost access to their Google account without any way to contact an actual person that could help them.
For me its going from $0 to $15 a month using Proton which feels way to high. Im cutting proton and switching to Proton free tier for email and Backblaze for storage. Getting a little $100 pc to put in my draw to handle hosting all the stuff i need. My budget is around $10 a month to cover all the tech NEEDS. I think its doable but I will need to pay with my time to learn about/setup a foss stack. I'll also need to put some money aside to drop a donation to each project in the stack yearly.
My tech needs arent huge. Email+email alias service, cloud storage for PC backups and syncing data across devices, VPN, server to host internet thangs, domain, mobile data. Yeah now that im laying it out $10 is not going to be enough but i'll try my best to work within the constraints and see what I can do. I'll probably do a need budget for $10 and a wants budget of $20.
You really don't want to host email yourself. Major PITA, time sink and constant possibility of your emails being just silently discarded after being accepted at the big providers.
I have fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem. It’s a walled garden but it’s a pretty nice walled garden, and of all the big tech companies, they are better about privacy (not perfect, but better) than most. I avoid Google like the plague and only use it when I have to. When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
It sure is a nice walled garden, but it can also be pretty restrictive: You can’t subscribe to iCloud from a regular browser, which makes those privacy benefits inaccessible from Linux, while Apple is perfectly happy to take my payment info for Apple Music or Apple TV.
> When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
just untrue lol. people literally just believe any nonsense they read. in a pedantic sense any company, where you send things to them is just "going into a log somewhere to be monetized" if you mean having logs can help improve the product which makes said company money...
so, to narrow things down this is presumably about personalization - in which case that's obviously just untrue.
assuming it's in the pedantic sense, most logs at google are not directly monetized, nor are most logs at google even part of services that even roll-up to ads.
> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now.
This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs (https://blogs.hyvor.com/), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as an existence proof. Does anyone know any better ones?
Substack is both a blogging platform and a micro-social network with a feed and a subscriptions SaaS so really depends on what parts you want from it the most
From what I've heard from people who insist on using Substack even though it's American, VC-funded and full of dark patterns, they are trying to make money from their writing and are actively hoping to capitalize on its social network features. Basically they want Instagram or YouTube for text, they want "the algorithm", they want the recommendations, they want the analytics, they want the money or the fame more than they want to uphold their indie values. There is no non-US alternative that provides an equal-sized network effect, but if there was it would anyway be problematic because that whole model of monetization where the platform refuses to take any editorial responsibility incentivizes the production of clickbait, ragebait, misinformation/disinformation, scams, slop etc.
Of course for ordinary people there has always been an alternative to Substack, and it's the Bcc field in their email client. For folks looking to self-publish on the web, Wordpress has been around for decades now - there is no excuse for any serious writer or journalist not to know about it and the multitude of managed hosting options. Even for a newsletter-first option, there is Ghost. But if you discuss this with writers who move to Substack the answer is always the same - they want to try access the money or the fame that may come from being on the most popular social network for writing. I think the only fix for this broken ecosystem is for governments to dismantle these sorts of companies, but the US will never kill their golden geese - they are gladly taking a cut from every other country's content creators.
If you're comfortable going with a US-based provider, https://www.scipress.io/ seems a lot more honest. They've DIY'd their legal documents badly, but they prohibit AI-farms and don't appear to sell user data. If I had to pick based on first impressions, I'm far more inclined to trust Scipress.
They moved from platform USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy.
That's a big deal to some of us.
Especially important it the demonstration that your privacy which Google et al, are so insistent on monetizing, does not mean they are charging you less for the same services that other companies can charge when you are paying only with your money, not your privacy as well.
That's a choice. But it's not everyone's choice. And with <waves hands wildly around>, the non-USA choice is rapidly becoming more popular - at least among the people I know and talk to outside the US.
“Worse” is fully dependant on what you’re looking to get out of a product. I consider anything Google/Meta to be about as bad as it gets because I disagree with their business practices and value my privacy.
I don't like the idea of moving from google's ecosystem to proton. While they're better, ecosystems tend to get locked down or change for the worse.I'm not planning to repeat the google cycle. I got my own domain for email, bitwarden for passwords, firefox forks for browsing, and many other stuff to get off google. Also I realised that stuff like contacts, notes, calendar don't really need to be on the cloud, but I'm planning to self host some services like that, mostly for the nerd in me.
Vivaldi doesn't block ads as well as uBlock Origin, so I'll stick with uBlock Origin which means Firefox and friends anymore.
I’m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem and nothing would make me happier than switching to a privacy-focused European alternative.
However, the value of the Google Workspace* mid-tier (approx. 15€) is hard to beat, I think.
I get:
- granular domain \ email controls (blocklists, routing rules, etc.)
- 2tb of google drive space
- and now Gemini, which is quite nice
It’s 2025, and I’m still finding it impossible to leave :(
* note: I use Google Workspace as a personal account, with just one (my) user, because that gives me access to the domain and management tools listed above
It’s far from impossible, you just have to prioritize your privacy at more than a few bucks a month.
If it was just privacy it would be an easy sell but there is nothing close to a fully functional alternative then Microsoft.
Or in this case have a look at the Google Graveyard and/or those many stories of users that lost access to their Google account without any way to contact an actual person that could help them.
For me its going from $0 to $15 a month using Proton which feels way to high. Im cutting proton and switching to Proton free tier for email and Backblaze for storage. Getting a little $100 pc to put in my draw to handle hosting all the stuff i need. My budget is around $10 a month to cover all the tech NEEDS. I think its doable but I will need to pay with my time to learn about/setup a foss stack. I'll also need to put some money aside to drop a donation to each project in the stack yearly.
If Proton is too expensive, you can use zoho. I switched from Google and I'm missing nothing.
I don't think a $10 budget will suffice.
My tech needs arent huge. Email+email alias service, cloud storage for PC backups and syncing data across devices, VPN, server to host internet thangs, domain, mobile data. Yeah now that im laying it out $10 is not going to be enough but i'll try my best to work within the constraints and see what I can do. I'll probably do a need budget for $10 and a wants budget of $20.
You really don't want to host email yourself. Major PITA, time sink and constant possibility of your emails being just silently discarded after being accepted at the big providers.
I have fully bought into Apple’s ecosystem. It’s a walled garden but it’s a pretty nice walled garden, and of all the big tech companies, they are better about privacy (not perfect, but better) than most. I avoid Google like the plague and only use it when I have to. When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
It sure is a nice walled garden, but it can also be pretty restrictive: You can’t subscribe to iCloud from a regular browser, which makes those privacy benefits inaccessible from Linux, while Apple is perfectly happy to take my payment info for Apple Music or Apple TV.
> When you’re interacting with Google, everything you do is going into a log somewhere to be monetized.
just untrue lol. people literally just believe any nonsense they read. in a pedantic sense any company, where you send things to them is just "going into a log somewhere to be monetized" if you mean having logs can help improve the product which makes said company money...
so, to narrow things down this is presumably about personalization - in which case that's obviously just untrue.
assuming it's in the pedantic sense, most logs at google are not directly monetized, nor are most logs at google even part of services that even roll-up to ads.
How so?
where's the proof of the claim? for one the privacy policy contradicts.
> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now.
This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs (https://blogs.hyvor.com/), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as an existence proof. Does anyone know any better ones?
https://ghost.org — Open-source run by a non-profit headquartered in Singapore.
Substack is both a blogging platform and a micro-social network with a feed and a subscriptions SaaS so really depends on what parts you want from it the most
Yeah, I haven't found any dedicated subscription-blog providers outside the US – but I definitely remember seeing at least 2 in the past!
From what I've heard from people who insist on using Substack even though it's American, VC-funded and full of dark patterns, they are trying to make money from their writing and are actively hoping to capitalize on its social network features. Basically they want Instagram or YouTube for text, they want "the algorithm", they want the recommendations, they want the analytics, they want the money or the fame more than they want to uphold their indie values. There is no non-US alternative that provides an equal-sized network effect, but if there was it would anyway be problematic because that whole model of monetization where the platform refuses to take any editorial responsibility incentivizes the production of clickbait, ragebait, misinformation/disinformation, scams, slop etc.
Of course for ordinary people there has always been an alternative to Substack, and it's the Bcc field in their email client. For folks looking to self-publish on the web, Wordpress has been around for decades now - there is no excuse for any serious writer or journalist not to know about it and the multitude of managed hosting options. Even for a newsletter-first option, there is Ghost. But if you discuss this with writers who move to Substack the answer is always the same - they want to try access the money or the fame that may come from being on the most popular social network for writing. I think the only fix for this broken ecosystem is for governments to dismantle these sorts of companies, but the US will never kill their golden geese - they are gladly taking a cut from every other country's content creators.
https://www.beehiiv.com/ is another one.
They appear to be based in New York, which is in the US. They're also not very privacy-friendly.
Ah, yes. They're a step up from Substack in some ways though, from what people say, so it might be worth a switch compared to staying on Substack.
If you're comfortable going with a US-based provider, https://www.scipress.io/ seems a lot more honest. They've DIY'd their legal documents badly, but they prohibit AI-farms and don't appear to sell user data. If I had to pick based on first impressions, I'm far more inclined to trust Scipress.
boosty.to is a Substack alternative, outside of both the US and the EU.
They moved from platform A to platform B.
They moved from platform USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy.
That's a big deal to some of us.
Especially important it the demonstration that your privacy which Google et al, are so insistent on monetizing, does not mean they are charging you less for the same services that other companies can charge when you are paying only with your money, not your privacy as well.
I'd rather Google have my data than the EU
That's a choice. But it's not everyone's choice. And with <waves hands wildly around>, the non-USA choice is rapidly becoming more popular - at least among the people I know and talk to outside the US.
EU has always and always will be moving away from US tech
And platform B is basically a worse version of everything than platform A.
I admire the motivation though
“Worse” is fully dependant on what you’re looking to get out of a product. I consider anything Google/Meta to be about as bad as it gets because I disagree with their business practices and value my privacy.
I Spend 0. I don't understand why anyone would need most of these services.
Try reading more books, eg autobiographies or fiction. Understanding other people’s perspectives is a skill like any other.
Maybe you should take your own advise and try to understand his perspective.
beautiful reply