Does anyone else feel as if it's over when it comes to really owning your own things?
As of now:
- You don't have the option of having a phone with decent specs and replaceable parts
- You have to have really good knowledge in tech to have private services that are on par with what the big companies offer
- You have to put up with annoying compatibility issues if you install a custom ROM on your android phone
- You cannot escape apps preventing you from using them if you root your device
- Cars are becoming SaaS bullcrap
- Everything is going for a subscription model in general
And now Google is attempting to implement DRM on websites. If that goes through, Firefox is going to be relegated to privacy conscious websites (there aren't many of those). At this point, why even bother? Why do I go to great lengths at protecting my privacy if it means that I can't use most services I want?
It sucks because the obvious solution is for people to move away from these bullshit companies and show that they actually care about their privacy. Even more important is to actually PAY for services they like instead of relying on free stuff. I'm not optimistic not just because the non privacy conscious side is lazy, but because my side is greedy. I mean one of the most popular communities on lemmy is "piracy" which makes it all the more reasonable for companies not to listen to privacy conscious people.
I wouldn't say that this is the endgame but in this trajectory, privacy is gone before 2030.
There's a phone company out of Europe, Fairphone, that's striving to fix these problems. I can't really say if their specs are up to par or not (fwiw their newest phone can do 5G), but you can repair you phone with their Spare Parts offerings, like the selfie camera, earpiece, rear cameras, speaker, USB-C port, display, back cover, battery, etc.
Issue is that you can't buy it in the US or elsewhere, but there are some tricks where you can get it into the US/CA by going with Clove or Reship.
Phone looks to work best on T-Mobile networks, so AT&T or Verizon users might see terrible performance.
So, not panacea, but a decent solution for those willing to go down that path.
Fairphone is excellent for repairability and the general ethics their company have, but that comes at the cost of performance and software updates. They don't come close to modern flagships and their Android versions are years behind. Making a good, private phone costs money, and few people care enough about their privacy to buy a Fairphone.
That said, phone hardware has become fast enough that even the slower SoCs will work just fine for most people and it's not like Android has gained any important features in the last two or three major updates.