Ask HN: How do you get by without an account with any "Big Tech" Company?

[bcye]

If you are not registered with any big tech company (apple, google, amazon, meta, netflix, spotify, etc.), what is your setup/how does your digital life look like? What do you use alternatively, and if you don't use a smartphone, what do you replace it with?

I'm curious as it seems to me that, it is quite unavoidable to have an account with at least one of these companies:

- If you use a smartphone you're pretty much bound to have a Google/Apple account or at least share data with them (if you use LineageOS/GrapheneOS you'll still propably use google services for push notifications etc.)

- media consumption (especially discovery and mobile use) seems very impractical without the subscription based services

[DamonHD]

On my Android phone I have never signed into the Google app store, nor told Google my ID, and things work fine. I did this for better privacy and security. (I sideloaded exactly one app: Signal.)

FWIW I occasionally play media content such as from YT, SoundCloud.

[bcye → DamonHD]

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Does your bank offer alternative methods other than a smartphone app for TAN generation or how do you manage to not sideload banking apps?

Do you use FOSS apps to consume SoundCloud/YT?

[DamonHD → bcye]

I do banking from my laptop, which I consider much more secure, and authentication is with debit card and dongle.

[DamonHD → bcye]

On the other half of your question! - I consume content with the browser.

(On the laptop I do my banking with the browser and would be very unwilling to run a native app without good reason.)

[coldtrait → DamonHD]

How do you manage syncing contacts and other stuff? Or just, access email?

[DamonHD → coldtrait]

I don't want to write email on a teeny-tiny screen with a crappy virtual keyboard, so nothing of value lost there. Short messages (SMS, Signal) are fine.

Syncing contacts has always been a mess right back to the Nokia Communicator bricks, so I largely do it manually either with a full export/import, or entering appropriate details manually on both laptop and phone.

[coldtrait → DamonHD]

Understandable. Especially if you value privacy.

Even though I'm selling my data to Google, managing all my contacts and calender dates has been been a breeze using Gmail and its suite of apps.

[DamonHD → coldtrait]

I am happy doing most diary stuff across multiple calenday sources including Exchange and Google and local, though my macOS Calendar clients.

[an_aparallel]

i live in Australia, if this makes any difference to you.

My digital life is simple - i am into tech...but not tech companies ideas of tech. I dont subcribe to any services.

No facebook, linkedin, google of any sort, X, tiktok, whatsapp and so on

Phone - use grapheneOS - no apps installed. Only APK's for basic things like audio recorder, note taking. Google maps on separate graphene profile - with throw away email address (this part is the only one that sucks...i have garbage back sense of direction and the OSS options dont work) Close profile as soon as trip is over.

Banking - use a laptop - i dont know when or why it became acceptable to bank on phones.

Friends - this sucks - but you need friends who understand the decision you're making - many/most dont, and will not understand your reasoning or think you're insane.

*Media - self host, and build personal media library. Support bandcamp/owned and drm free media, physical media, no streaming of any sort (spotify, netflix and so on)

It's definitely not unavoidable - you have to choose what you value more - privacy, and choice - or "fitting in"/"convenience". none of the above is easy, it sucks, it makes you question your sanity...it might not be possible in the blink of an eye-lid.

[bcye → an_aparallel]

> Google Maps

Have you thought of Organic Maps? It's a really great OSM open source mapping app, obviously still missing public transport+ traffic data, but the quality of OSM data is surprisingly good and it's completely offline (auto downloads the region you're viewing a few MB at a time, or just download the whole world which is ~37GB (aside: it feels really cool to fit so much content on your phone - You can fit global Wikipedia + Wikivoyage + World Map on a 256gb phone)

> Spotify

Can you recommend a good self hosting setup for music? I'm aware there are pretty cool setups for movies but for music I haven't yet discovered any

> none of the above is easy, it sucks, it makes you question your sanity...it might not be possible in the blink of an eye-lid.

That's what prompted this Ask HN, it's crazy to notice it's quite hard to not have an account with any big tech

[an_aparallel → bcye]

i think i tried organic maps - i tried punching in a destination - nothing happened. i can try again - do you use it for navigation?

self hosting music - with a preface that you have drm free audio/mp3/flacs etc:

airsonic works for cloud streaming music. rune audio is open source - if you have music on a computer/rasbpi with a HD connected to it - it has an android based remote control app so you can browse collection on phone - and press play from phone - then it plays off the physical rasbpi. nice solution imo. Looks good too :) See: www.runeaudio.com

[bcye → an_aparallel]

Yes I used it for navigation (when I was on GrapheneOS). it's a bit unintuitive maybe at first, when you punch in a destination a few buttons are in the bottom bar for depart from, depart to, favourite and so on. If you choose one, it will let you select the start/end and transport mode. It worked quite well, but obviously without public transport/traffic data.

Thanks for suggesting those music services, will look into it :)

[ActorNightly]

I have an older One Plus One running Kali Nethunter. Completely free of anything Google. I have used it overseas, using wifi+signal for communication, offline maps, with iptables rules restricting a good number of 3d party apps from accessing the internet (have to test each one beforehand to make sure it can work). For the rest of the stuff, ad-hoc browser usage is sufficient.

[p1esk]

I’m registered with, and have been happily using for many years, all of the companies you mentioned (and a dozen more). I want them to know a lot about me so hopefully they show me relevant ads (I buy a lot of stuff) or provide better service. My digital life is great. Please tell me why should I change it?

[bcye → p1esk]

I did not want to ask anyone to change it with the question, heck I'm not sure I want to with all the conveniences they provide - there's a reason why basically everyone has at least one account with big tech.

Still, I think it's chilling to think how over the course of two decades you've gone from a world with no big data/companies controlling you, to it being the norm (and very hard not to) have an account with at least one of them.

Aside from privacy - just the control they have with no negotiation power on your side, from TOS and privacy policy, to randomly being able to ban your account with no recourse is chilling.

[nusl → p1esk]

You’re pretty much the model consumer for these companies. So, well done I suppose.

On the why; up to you. Depends on how much you value your privacy or trust the companies with your data. If you’re fine with them knowing your whole life, that’s fine too.

[runjake → p1esk]

Nobody is asking you to change. OP is just asking a question.