Getting rid of unneccesary bloat

Or, as we say in German: alte Zöpfe abschneiden (cutting off old braids)

Yesterday I finally put my money where my mouth is and deleted both my #LinkedIn- and #Instagram-accounts.

After years of being annoyed and or getting trapped in yet another cycle of doomscrolling I finally set both accounts for deletion. And boy did that feel good. Like "alte Zöpfe abschneiden" good.

What gave me the final push was a customer of my day job - mind you, I am only an employee of the webhosting company, not the owner or CEO - reaching out to me via a "friend" request in LinkedIn. I didn't even have anything to do with them, didn't connect via prior mails, chats or calls.
And while I do get their frustration it felt like a serious breach of privacy to be contacted that way.

Anywho - I am already looking forward to getting rid of more unneccesary and/or evil bloat and cutting myself off of big tech even more.

What are your "braids" that you still need to get rid of?

@pepdmin
Good for you.
Terminated my linkedin a while ago, and never regretted it.
I've never been into facebook or other twitter, so I have nothing of the kind to get rid of.
The only thing I'd like to part with is google. I have "cleaned" my phone as much as I can, but I have to have android.
Here (Luxembourg) we use one single identification system for everything: bank(s), taxeS, social security, e-health system, etc.
Currently it only runs on android and iOS. We used to have tokens, but they've been retired. I have an alternative solution (the chip in the ID card), but that only works with the card reader on the PC.
So pretty much stuck.
Luckily the system had a bad crash a while ago and the country was paralized for almost 2 days, so the goiv realized a SPOF was not the best solution and they are working on an alternative.
In the meantime...

@francois Thank you and I am also in the same boat as you with Google/Android. I absolutely hate that even though Trump showed the world that it is a really bad idea to make yourself too dependent on external actors - ESPECIALLY Google - is a bad idea. I sincerly hope that this too shall pass in a few years but for now... this dependency is shite.

@pepdmin
I never thought I would say this, but Trump did more for Europe than Schuman 😆 .
Thanks to him most europeans finally realized that the US (or anybody else for that matter) couldn't be trusted, and that we had to rely only on ourselves.
And Europe is never as good as when it gets a good kick in the ass, so initiatives have been flourishing all over:

• getting rid of windows (turn to linux),
• getting rid of Office (create their own fork of onlyoffice, see https://office.eu/ ),
• switching to ODF
• the defense projects
• get rid of Visa/Mastercard
  This last one is worth elaborating on, as it received very little press coverage.
  Twenty-four (24) trillions dollars go from EU=>US every years via Visa/Mastercard. So getting rid of that means a real hit to the US economy.
  It is real or will be between now and 1Q2027 depending where you live in the EU.
  In a nutshell, a system had already been set up, but countries were dragging their feet - well no longer.
  It is called WERO and is active in FR, DE and BE already (although you may know it by another name like Payconic in Belgium).
  As of September it will start in LU and AU and until next year will be behind Bizum in SP, MB-Way in PT, Bancomat in IT, etc (and gradually replace the branding as well).

Read all about it :
https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/
and of course
https://wero-wallet.eu/pay-online

( and of course what we're all waiting for is a system to replace android/iOS, but it will come... )

@francois Yeah - I am really looking forward to #Wero launching in #Austria. Does it work without an app though?