Public accountability time for my 2026 project!
This year, my intention is to semi-revisit Project Unplug. I realised at the end of that attempt that it is not feasible to live without the Internet – not with my job, not with my country.
But what I think I can do is ‘De-shittify’ my life. That’s going to be on every level I can feasibly imagine it. What I can’t de-shittify I will airwall.
I made a joke a while ago that the new retro Amiga 1200 would be my new daily computer, and ever since that I’ve become idly obsessed with the idea of going back to a time of computing where it was more about using it like an appliance and less like a thing into which I’m permanently plugged. I mean, I used to use word processors on a Commodore 64 [1]. I’m not actually sure I really need more features than I needed back them.
Why then is there so much big-tech crud-ware on my system? Why is AI now threaded through every fucking facet of my applications [2]? Why am I only somewhat in control of what happens on my devices? When I press a button and the computer says ‘thinking’, it makes me irrationally angry. Just obey, for fuck’s sake. Clicking eject is not a negotiation.
This is also going to extend to my phone, which is perhaps the most challenging area. I’ve already cut my phone usage down heavily but the simple fact is that in Sweden the assumption that you’re using a phone all the time is deeply embedded. Everything from public transport to spending money is techified. You can bypass a lot of it but it’s effortful. It’s a lot more inconvenient to go into a Vasttraffik store to pick up a physical card than it is to click an app on the phone. And since this is a work phone I can’t really just strip it back down a minimal install [3]. And now I can’t even use half of the university’s services without having to fill out a fucking Microsoft authenticator form and click through five screens. Seriously, why is tech so much better on paper and so much worse in reality [4]? Why is every ‘improvement’ actually a new level of enshittification [5] I’m being gaslit about? ‘Congratulations user, we have upgraded you to a new account setting that includes regular non-consensual violent sodomy AT NO EXTRA CHARGE TO YOU. This is called ACCOUNT PLUS GOLD PRIME. A mere 50% extra to get on the higher plan, which is the one you were paying for already.’.
So, if I can’t fight it then I can quarantine it. Keep the metastasising tumors away from the main body. I have a terrible shitty old tablet that I can probably use for most of the worst of things. And I think from now on I will just say ‘Sorry, the system has prevented me from doing this’ any time I don’t have access to that tablet. Keep as much as I can clean. Redirect the effluent away from my drinking water.
Immediate plans:
1) Ditch Windows. The platform is actively psychotic at this point. Gaming on linux is feasible now, right?
2) Pick up some wearable NFC enabled keyfob for replacing Google Wallet.
3) Install Better Launcher on the phone so it’s a pain in the hole to spend much time on it. Get it down to the minimum viable product for living in Sweden.
4) Redirect all the intrusive shitware to a sacrificial tablet that I don’t actually use for anything much.
5) Ditch Spotify (maybe) and blow the dust off of all my old ripped MP3s. I once had an extensive music library. Now I rent the same 500ish songs on a monthly basis.
6) Replace all my big-tech applications with better ones. Why am I using Word when I enjoy Obsidian so much? What are the chances do you think I could get all my favourite people back onto IRC?
7) No more services, insofar as that’s at all possible. I still need my webhosting. I need somewhere cloud based for backups (I use the 3-2-1 method – three backups, two different formats, one remote). Currently it’s the main data store, a backup external drive, and iDrive storage. If a device or an app needs a subscription, it can go fuck itself too. No more renting software. I buy it for life or I don’t use it.
8) Document ‘computer creep’ and mindfully curate. Whenever I’m doing something on a computer, phone or tablet I should be asking ‘Should I be doing this analog?’. But this isn’t a universal edict. Buying newspaper for example would be a better way to deal with news, but it’s not credible – too expensive, environmentally destructive, creates storage and disposal issues. That’s a problem. However, ‘pocketmags’ is a subscription service (I know what I said above, but this is a good one) that gives you access to hundreds of periodicals that you can read on a physical device, often for less than you’d pay for a single issue at a newsstand. So that’s probably optimal. Do I need to be using a notes app on my computer though, or should I use an actual notebook? That’s less obvious. But the key thing is an audit. I’m not looking to introduce friction into my life, but I am also not looking to minimise it. This is context dependant.
9) If something is better digital, the next question is ‘is it better decentralised’. Do I want my phone to be my music player? Or do I want an actual MP3 player like in the good old days? Do I want email on every device or just my computer? Do I need a browser on my phone? Do I need Discord on my computer?
10) Turn everything possible, and I mean everything into a pull ecosystem. No more pushing. The first time an application tries to get me to upgrade to a higher tier, or install an AI plugin, or whatever – it’s gone and replaced. No upselling. No ads. No notifications I don’t explicitly opt into. And I plan to be ruthless about this – being able to switch things off isn’t enough, because it’ll keep introducing new switches. Look at how the EU fucked up cookie consent. If I need to go hunting for a setting, I’ll go hunting for a replacement.
In essence – I can’t beat them. I don’t want to join them. Instead I will kick and scream and pursue every possible alternative. And where there is no alternative, onto the ‘toilet tablet’ it goes with all the other shit.
As you all know by now, I try to do one of these projects every year. And often by this point they’re refinements of previous years. As usual, I will try to keep those that are interested updated. And since some of you work with me, this is also a warning that I will likely be saying ‘Yeah, I am not in a position to do that’ more often than before, and I’ll be sticking to it a lot more rigidly. And importantly, I will not be willing to interpret it as a failure on my part. It is a failure of the technology. ‘Have you tried X’, or ‘you could do Y’, or ‘Maybe you can make an exception for Z’. No, in advance, to all of that.
[1] For which I used to plug a physical cartridge into the back, and you had to save any significant document into multiple segments because it only had 64 kilobytes of memory.
[2] I’m not actually an AI hater, if used mindfully and critically, and for the right kinds of tasks. But 98% of what I see AI being used for is dumb as fuck.
[3] Maybe?
[4] The reason is money, I know.