Most people from my circle use mainstream apps and see me as that “alternative” weirdo/geek.
Most alternative options are being used by geeks and males quite often. Its hard to find normies here.
Do you think there will be a shift in perception?
People intuitively understand you when you say you try to go to locally-owned co-ops/farmers markets instead of Walmart when you can, right? Or that you prefer to avoid Amazon and support your local independent bookshop, right? It’s actually cool to care about these things, people respect you when you make little rebellious political decisions.
My advice is frame your decisions about what apps to use the same way. “I try not to use the big corporate-owned apps when there are smaller non-profit alternatives run by communities of normal people.” Now you’re not some paranoid weirdo who’s afraid the NSA is out to get him, you’re just socially-conscious and care about things like where your time and money is going. I almost never try to explain what “open source” is or anything like that.
A girl on a first date once asked me what messaging apps I used and I said something like “My friends and I have been using this smaller non-profit app, it has all the same features as Messenger but without all the Zuckerberg bullshit.” and she downloaded it right then and there, thought it was cool.
This is an excellent way to state this.
At least in my circles and where I live it’s pretty normal to shit on mainstream apps. Most people still use them, but if my opinion of those platforms comes up I never feel judged. In fact, since the social dilemma came out and after Facebook’s most recent controversies and name change I’ve heard more and more people speaking poorly of social-media, smart phones, and algorithms in general.
In my experience it’s almost as if using social-media is perceived the same as smoking was in the 80s-90s: everyone knows it’s terrible for you, but it’s normal. Now, in conversation there’s almost a prestige in saying “I don’t use Facebook” that causes people who do use Facebook to immediately justify using it by saying things like “Yeah, I only use it to keep in touch with family”, or “I don’t check it very often”.
Many of my friends and family half-joke about their addiction to their phones and apps, it seems pretty widely recognized now.
I don’t believe alternative apps, services, and platforms are necessarily better, so if I bring up the fediverse it’s usually in the context of me advocating for government forcing interoperability between social media sites to weaken the tech-giant oligopoly. Most people’s response is basically “huh, I didn’t even know that was possible”.
For using Linux I used to catch flak from my friends when trying to play games with them, but we don’t play games nearly as often anymore and anything we do play generally works on Linux now, so I don’t get teased anymore. Amongst every single non-techie friend I have they could not possible care less that I use Linux.
Yeah I agree, almost everybody knows that big tech companies are selling and using their data to make profits, but the majority of this people don’t care enough about it, just like smoking, they know smoking is bad they just don’t have the knowledge/courage/will or whatever to change their habits.
There will never be a shift in perception because people do not care. Normal mainstream people, I call this the normal worker class, never use the best solution in terms of privacy or what might be ethical correct. This will never change, never. No matter how many leaks, no matter if media is all over it, people do not care.
Some people also have other interest, a trucker in his truck who is constantly under time pressure has less time to chill his life in a forum and do a philosophy talk about this and that. It is an oversimplified example, not a generalization, but reflects this part of society pretty much.
Education plays a major role, lots of people are uneducated when it comes to technology.
Also, please stop calling people weirdos or normies, if you want that someone should take this question serious.
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be proud of it. When i order a meal in a restaurant i tell the waiter i use arch linux. When im done and he’s trying to count the handful of coins i’ve given him i tell him that the bank uses proprietary software and i do this out of respect for mine and his freedom and privacy
Only half joking: Get tech savvy friends. Like, computer science/IT/infosec tech savvy, not Vlogger/Cryptocurrency/Tech review channel “tech savvy”. I’ve found that a lot of people in the tech profession, especially those involved with open source development or security are way more weary of “mainstream” consumer tech to the point of not wanting to use them.
Counter-question, how do I deal with this AND being a woman from a caring/interpersonal profession instead of a primarily IT/CS one? (My childhood was very CS/STEM heavy, but I broke away from the rest of the family in this regard).
I’m kidding I already know: I’m trying to build up and contribute to the communities I want to see here, namely private spaces for people to vent about their Healthcare jobs and mental health concerns, and a place for people to look at memes, especially anticapitalist and otherwise non-conforming ones.
I use Signal/Linux/modded versions of Instagram/other proprietary apps and don’t get seen as the “alternative” weirdo because I can clearly explain why I use these things.
How do yoy explain? You united mmy curiosity.
My friends usually make jokes abut my needing 3h to launch a game (Not my fault I needed to compile a bunch of things) or my being “paranoic”. But I don’t care bc they do it an a friendly way and sometimes their jokes are funny.
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I kind of feel like @CHEFKOCH@lemmy.ml, I don’t think there will ever be a shift because the vast majority of people simply don’t care. No matter how much you show them there’s a better way they rather stick with the simpler way.
I do think though that the situation can largely improve and that we are heading in the right direction, even if we are progressing slowly.
That being said even though I know some of my friends and family do see me as the “alternative” one (and definitely a geek) I never felt like they saw me as a weirdo :)
I think I stopped caring a long time ago. I’ve always been different from the rest and went from trying to fit in, to embracing my difference to not caring anymore. As long as you stay informed about the world around you, there is no issue imho with using other or different apps to what your peers are using for entertainment.
As for the shift in perception, only when it’s forced or required.
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Well, I’m being marginalized on my “friend” group for not wanting to use facebook products or similar proprietary software. 😃. That’s how this alternative weirdo thing is working in my case. It hardens significantly this thing about making relationships, with or without the opposite sex, mostly because of this era in which we live where we should not be physically meeting with other people. I just smile 😃. So that’s how I deal with it.
I think we can say from looking at the mainstream internet that we don’t want a shift in perception. Seems to me that the moment that the mainstream finds something, they’re going to intentionally or unintentionally break it. I would choose a few million weirdos who understand why we’re all here and to a few billion normies who want to come in and break my toys any day of the week.
