When I announced I would be closing my communities earlier this year, a curious thing happened: a surprising number of regulars replied with some variation of “I think this is my exit.” While some were specifically talking about Matrix, claiming that mine was the only room they were really active in and therefore they saw no point to having a Matrix account anymore, at least one specifically announced they would be quitting privacy entirely, save for a few basic techniques like using a password manager and being mindful of what to post online. While I didn’t expect the number of people responding that way, I was expecting that response from one or two people. If you check any given privacy forum – especially the ones with a heavy overlap of mainstream users such as Reddit – you’ll find no shortage of people asking “is all this work worth it?” and/or announcing that they’re giving up privacy because it’s too much work. So what gives? Is privacy worth the work?
privacy is always worth the work
It is, but like so many things in our current landscape, it’s also exhausting.
And that’s why you need to figure out what’s the right balance of work and inconvenience vs. the amount of privacy you get in return. Setting up a degoogled android is possible and relatively easy too. Living with that phone and interacting with the real world around you in 2024 is a completely different matter, and it’s entirely understandable if that isn’t your cup of tea.
Someone doesn’t threat model
Says someone commenting to an unencrypted, publicly federated, social media platform.
I’m not sure “always” means what you think it means.
You can do that while sensitive information requires completely private. There’s really no discrepancy here.
As I said, that’s a very different definition of “always”. In fact it’s more like “sometimes”.
Always, would literally mean nobody knows you even exist.
Any knowledge of your existence would mean you’ve lost some privacy.
But if they didn’t post here, how will you make fun of them?