I use Linux on my laptop and a GrapheneOS on my phone. I use almost all FOSS software, so they’re not getting most of my data and selling it like they used to. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not hurting any of the bigtech.

I haven’t bought anything from Amazon, Costco, Wal-Mart, big box stores for at least 5 years now. I will also never be getting anything from places like Temu.

As well, I try to make almost all my food, shopping, etc choices to benefit something small, or someone local, that needs my money more than things that further drive the Machine in the end.

Avoiding contributing to the economy as much as possible.

Doing business under the table, never eating at restaurants, never spending money on digital entertainment I could be getting for free.

I’m honestly a lot happier than when I was consuming.

I’m doing what I can, as small an impact as it has. I’ve become much more aware of what I buy, use, and consume. I’ve begun to repair things instead of just buying new replacements, I don’t buy American whenever possible, and I don’t use any AI at all. I’ve completely cut out Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Reddit, any streaming service and any social media except the Fediverse, and of course nothing from Musk.

However, the biggest impact I’ve been able to make has been getting a couple people to re-think what they consume from fascist-enabling big tech companies. Small wins.

Sounds like a fed question

Since July I’ve been boycotting US companies. I’ve gone as far as setting up my own self-hosted home server for document / bookmark / media storage, which is actually fantastic and I wish I’d done this sooner. All streaming services have been cancelled. I only buy from European brands, and only directly from their own website (no Amazon, etc). This was the first year in a long time where I’ve declined a phone upgrade with my network - I’ll just keep my current phone as long as possible. All my smart home tech is being gradually phased away from Google / Nest and towards Matter / Home Assistant. Windows has been wiped from my PC and I’ve moved to Linux. I cancelled my Adobe subscription in favour of FOSS alternatives. My family and close friends have all switched to Signal (though we did this years ago).

While I still use social media (I make digital art), the only thing I ever post on Facebook/Insta/Threads is my artwork. I don’t post anything personal anymore, because that’s my data.

Despite all these “sacrifices”, I don’t really feel like I’ve lost anything. In fact, things are arguably better now I’m unshackled from US tech giants. I’m saving a ton of money too from all the cancelled subscriptions.

Been boycotting Wetherspoons (a popular chain of pubs in the UK, owned by a Brexit supporting prick) for over a decade now.

All Linux. No Amazon. Support local. Hosting my own pages, servers and not using online clouds. Changing habits on what sites to use to avoid AWS where possible

I don’t shop if i can help it. I buy used whenever possible and repair things even when the cost is almost the same as replacement. when i do have to shop, i favour small local businesses. i also avoid american goods and services like the plague.

I built an encrypted, secure, takedown safe network called Tenfingers but during the roughly 10 years of building, honing and polishing it, only 2 persons have ever tried it and one was a friend. So I guess it’s not really what people want 😅.

I learned a lot though.

I’ve concluded that with personal boycotts, perfect is the enemy of good. Time was I’d decide to boycott someone like Nestle but then fall off the wagon when I had a Smarties craving and then just sort of stop doing the rest of it.

So now I take the approach of trying to look for an alternative, but if I can’t find it then I won’t beat myself up about it, I’ll keep trying tomorrow. It’s not great but it’s better than what I was doing before.

That said, it wasn’t at all difficult to cut all the US grocery brands out of my shopping when Trump started his tariff bullshit, cause it’s all hyper-processed artificially coloured crap to begin with.

Myself, I am becoming as much “anti-consumption” as possible. I am removing myself from capitalism, as much as possible.

I still have to eat, of course, so I buy food. But I don’t buy food from corporations. As an example, I don’t buy anything from Nestle, nor from any big corporations. Gadgets and tech, I will be avoiding as much as possible, and if I do find myself needing to buy, I will do so but not from the usual corporations.

Social networks: only lemmy and mastodon sometimes. Fuck reddit and instagram and facebook. Don’t have an account there and never will. I don’t go there anymore.

I try to keep a “solarpunk” attitude. I do things for the good of the environment. I do/will-be-doing things such as composting, reducing the use of plastic, avoiding cars.

I am also trying to get people on board with my view of things, but I haven’t been much successful. I think principled people are very rare. People just don’t care.

I’m loving those around me and feeling empathy for everyone on the planet even harder. They can throw me in a concentration camp or kill me, but they can’t make me not love.

I’m here, for starters.

I’ve been systematically removing as many parts of myself from the corporate internet over the course of years. So far I’ve managed to drop:

• Facebook
• GMail
• Netflix
• Reddit
• Windows
• Prime
• HBO

I still have some stragglers, like YouTube, that I doubt will go anytime soon, but for the most part, I don’t have to deal with:

• Dark patterns
• Advertisements
• Anti-features (updates that remove functionality)
• FOMO
• Advertisements again
• Advertisements a third time

Really, I just do not like being advertised to, and outside YouTube sponsorships, which can be skipped, I can go whole days without ever coming across an ad on the internet, and even that feels high.

On top of all this, I’ve massively reduced my data collection footprint, meaning there’s far less info available to said advertisers and data collectors that they can use to manipulate me.

I also regularly try to provide some of this to my friends to also help cut them away from the propaganda machine.

I decided to move away from big american tech companies. When I started, the hardest part was finding an alternative to Google Maps.

I decided to be the change I want to see and have been contributing to OpenStreetMap nearly every day for 5 years as I update my local community.