This is great advice! Instead of expecting non-techies to handle the migration to more ethical platforms by themselves or leaving them in the control of large corporations, us techies have an obligation to help them with such tasks.
How do I help my non-techy friends to not be in control of technical decisions large organizations (I don't really have those) or to make the right decisions, while there are 10 "techy people" recommending Chrome, for every 1 privacy aware techy person like me, if not more, and these non-techy friends are not able to judge who has their best interest at heart or who knows their stuff best? How do they know who is the most knowledgeable?
There is always a huge temptation to choose convenience over privacy or security. If then some technical person recommends that avenue ...
And then comes along some accidental change, that breaks YouTube or GMail or whatever on Firefox ...
Thanks for asking. I haven't finished thinking it through, and I am young without much experience, but I think a possible avenue would be a return to the expectation that there is an "IT guy in the family" to help set up phones and computers for others to use. Essentially, there needs to be a culture change. There is some prior literature to this, for example https://runyourown.social/.
In this case, the non-techies don't need to know or care much about free software, convenience vs privacy/security, who is most knowledgeable, how to not be in the control of large corporations, etc., since it'll be the techie's job to help them set up their OSes and teach them how to use the functionality that they want to use. Additionally, I am assuming that techies are principled enough and knowledgeable enough to hold their own against corporations' anti-user decisions and advertising.
As a practical example, if a techie is culturally expected to buy and set up a laptop for a non tech-savvy member of the family, then the techie can simply install Tor Browser instead of Chrome and set it up to make sure it's working. Any additional instructions, if needed, can be taught via post-it notes. Humans are adaptable, and if the internet speed is acceptable via Tor, then I don't think most people would care or complain.
Of course, I cannot ignore the fact that to some people this seems like a power-grab by techies, or that people's expectations of technology has changed from "oh I'll just ask the IT family member" to "I expect to be able to use <device> out of the box". But I think this is an idea worth exploring, given how flexible it is.
> return to the expectation that there is an "IT guy in the family" to help set up phones and computers for others to use.
Definitely this. This is the only way to make-sure people around us are protected. If enough tech people do this, we will have a better tech ecosystem for all of us.
Atleast for me, I haven’t found an easy way to do it. Usually its about being the tech guy for them. I really dislike the “non techies are bad because they bother the techies for small issues” meme, surely you are not so busy as to not be able spend a hour on a loved one. Ever since a computer repair shop scammed my parents, doing tech support is something I enjoyed doing for people I know. Why know something if you cant share it with others? If something takes a considerable time to fix I will take the issue over to a shop that I trust and make-sure things are in order once its returned.
Whenever I fix something or install something I explain what I am doing, and why I am doing it, and I think at least in my experience years of helping my friends and family they at this point trust me when explain to them why something is important. Everyone values their privacy everyone gets concerned when they realize how creepy some companies are.
