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Free Internet Non-Believers (lemm.ee)

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

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I don't try explaining this stuff anymore. I'm extremely bad at it and I know most people will either not care or not care enough. And that's fine. It's easier to let people think I'm a luddite. I prefer to wait for them to ask me why I use technology differently than to preach to them, and most of the time, they don't ask. It's always easier to let people convince themselves than to try to convince them.

I tell them to install Signal and message me there, and if they don't want to do that, they can SMS me. Signal is a better idea if they want faster responses as I rarely check my phone but do check Signal Desktop fairly regularly. I have tried to get KDE Connect working so I can respond to SMS more timely but it was annoying and I gave up.