pemptago

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I've been surprised by how effective it's been to say, respectfully, "this is important to me," maybe adding "here's why." Got all my siblings, mom, SO, and best friend on Signal, that's a vast majority of my online conversations.

reddit is orders of magnitude bigger then lemmy, but I find lemmy high quality and has more people with similar values- more than i could ever keep up with.

Back when Adobe went subscription-only, I stopped using it on my personal work and devices even though a lot of my previous work depended on it. Had to switch to different tools, but now there are better options. Not only has Adobe stagnated, but they caused an even bigger exodus when they messed with the ToS to train ai on user data.

I switch to linux a few years ago and now when I have jobs that use windows I realize how clunky it actually is, and it's only getting worse while linux has been getting better.

I'm fully degoogled (also a graphineOS user). It took me years to eliminate each service, but I was sick of these giant companies that could never give me the things I wanted because in interferes with what they want (ad revenue). The only thing you can do is take it all back. Participate as little as possible. These companies will not stop getting worse while people continue to use them.

It can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and hard, but there are options, and it is a lot easier now than it was a decade ago. I see no reason why it wont continue to get easier and more accessible. That's why it's important for tech savvy folks to do what they can, now, and make it easier for those who come after them. Personally, I've done a lot for myself, but need to learn more about hosting securely so I can offer close friends and family better alternatives that they can easily access.

I wanted something similar from a remote company I was working for. They were pretty good about fulfilling requests, but when I asked for a good kvm switch they said they had trouble in the past and instead recommended a usb hub that can toggle between machines. Then connect both machines to the same monitor and toggle the input. Not ideal, but low cost and functional. Might not suit your needs (would be annoying if you have to frequently toggle back and forth), but if you're just trying to share your desk space between a work machine and personal, and the monitor input is easy to toggle, it's worth considering.

I don't think they have the ux advantage that their wealth suggests due to misaligned incentives. A good portion of their investment is getting users to see as many ads as they will tolerate. Try to modify any privacy settings, for example, and the ux is as garbage as amazon.

Fediverse and self hosted, open source alternatives are still relatively new. Folks have to expect some turbulence. As things grow and more bug reports and contributions can be made, the ux could be superior because they can give users what they want instead of maximizing monetization.

Misskey is a federated facebook alternative I heard about on mastodon recently. I'm not too familiar with it myself, but seems worth mentioning.

It has a "groups" feature that might avoid the "instance per person" lemmy workaround you were thinking about. According to this comparison misskey doesn't have a like button, but a few of its forks do. Not sure about the upload experience; may depend on the app. I didn't see any clients listed on their site but did a quick search for an iOS app, which exists, so i assume android, too.

Sorry I don't have more info, but I hope that's useful. Best of luck! I'll be looking for a similar solution in the near future.

And libro.fm for audiobooks. It's harder and harder to own media. Just look at movies and television. Got to support it if we want it to stick around.

Idk what your feed looks like but if it's like mine-- posts hyping ai juxtaposed with posts from artists that are (rightfully) upset that their work is being used without their consent to train generative ai in a push to replace artists or devalue their work-- linkedin can feel pretty dire and soul sucking.

Well said and a core concept people need to understand to appreciate data privacy/sovereignty. Simply calling it data overlooks what it often is: your behavior over time. We don't call it PII but few things are more personally identifying.

I was surprised by a recent, popular comment here on lemmy where someone advised against using cash because of missing out on rewards. A majority of people don't appreciate the tradeoffs here. By default, banks and private companies have more info on us than we have on ourselves. To think that they're going to do anything that benefits us more than them is naive. While not everything is zero sum, we are talking about extractive, profit seeking industries.

Cash seems like the best defense on this front. I recent switched back to cash, and continue to track my own finances; Bank sees $500 withdrawal; I see $34.45 at grocery store, $19.20 at hardware store, etc.

Pro tip: try random but memorable phone numbers at checkout. Now you can enjoy the savings, and salt/contaminate the data extraction of others. The more randomness (where and when you shop, what you buy, which numbers you use) the better.

All the metadata perhaps (still very valuable), but client-side, zero-access encryption means it's encrypted before it hits the servers. So while a data leak might, for example, show who, when, and how much you're emailing, it wouldn't show the content of the email as gmail would.

Moving in the direction of better and voting with your dollars is an important step away from already enshittified structures, which I'd argue, are inherent to certain models and not others. EG: a self hosted, open source software developed by a non-profit could sell and incorporate and enshittify, but the possibility of forking is an effective disincentive that could easily eat projected gains.

Wanted to 2nd and add to some of the comments, and ask a question (no expectation of an answer).

Spiraling. Many, if not all, have been there and it's an awful place to be. It will pass. You say you feel toxic, in that state you can be toxic to yourself, hence the suggestions for positive affirmations. It's a way to form a habit of not beating yourself up; getting stuck in- or compounding- your lows. If every time you make a mistake you think of all the things you do right, instead of all the things you do wrong, that mistake feels like a fluke rather than confirmation of a negative self image.

Focus on the basics: eat, sleep, move. Adhd is much worse when you're forget about the basics. I've been developing a habit of having low-effort healthy snacks around and eating more frequently and it helps (saying this now reminds me I should have some fruit and a protein).

Journaling can give a sense of relief, like what you wrote here. In time you may notice your triggers or common struggles and that can help develop systems to mitigate those issues. You mentioned not prepping your safety glasses or prepping lunch. Evening prep the night before is a great wind-down activity. You probably know this and just forgot or got distracted. It happens. Writing/reflecting like you did serves as a good reminder and can help build that habit (another downside to negative self talk: it can bury that info).

You mentioned you're losing hope medication can help. Are you currently taking medication? You may want to talk to your dr. I started medicating recently and the first one i tried took me in the opposite direction. The 2nd medication was good as i was increasing, but then introduced some issues (so I'm now trying a lower dose and if that doesn't help I'll have to try a 3rd med). The journal can also help recognize patterns, timing, when you took what and how much.

Thank you for sharing your struggle. It's not unfamiliar. Good luck on your journey. Wishing you the best. It'll get better. Keep at it.

Edit: typo

I'm with y'all there. On top of dealing with customers, it was pretty gross work: dumping the sticky bins when the bottle return was full; Mopping up messes; Emptying trash and throwing it in the compactor. Weather permitting, carts were definitely the easiest.

Going for stray carts at the outer edges = quiet walk without any customers or managers.

Wait and hope. I've long struggled with suicidal ideation, and I continue to work on it. I don't know you and I know you're not asking for for suggestions, but I can't see someone else struggling this way and say nothing.

The economic system is fucked, so fitting in is not necessarily a good thing. "It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." I know there are real financial pressures and struggles, I don't mean to minimize that, but thinking "I will participate as little as necessary" instead of "I'm not doing well at their game" has helped me find a sense of worth outside "success." Without you our team gets smaller. I think there are a lot of us, we just haven't had great ways to organize, but I see even being able to connect here on lemmy as a reason to hope.

As for what to do, doing nothing is better than doing something in an unjust system. Some of the things that have helped me: going to the library and walking the isles looking subjects that interest you (while we're on the subject, might I recommend "How to do Nothing" by Jenny Odell); Finding a natural space or park that you can go for a quiet walk; Working on personal projects, drawing, writing, etc which can come from and feed into time at the library.

I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds. I know when you're feeling hopeless, suggestions can feel like a condescending nuisance. I hope this is not that. I hope you hang on. We need more people who can see this is bullshit.