No matter how hard we all wish it were otherwise, the sad fact is that there aren't really individual solutions to systemic problems. For example: your personal diligence in recycling will have no meaningful impact on the climate emergency.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
1/
I get it. People write to me all the time, they say, "What can I change about my life to fight enshittification, or, at the very least, to reduce the amount of enshittification that I, personally, experience?"
It's frustrating, but my general answer is, "Join a movement. Get involved with a union, with @eff, with the @fsf. Tell your Congressional candidate to defend Lina Khan from billionaire Dem donors who want her fired. Do something *systemic*."
2/
There's very little you can do as a consumer. You're not going to shop your way out of monopoly capitalism. Now that Amazon has destroyed most of the brick-and-mortar *and* digital stores out of business, boycotting Amazon often just means doing without.
3/
The collective action problem of leaving Twitter or Facebook is so insurmountable that you end up stuck there, with a bunch of people you love and rely on, who all love each other, all hate the platform, but can't agree on a day and time to leave or a destination to leave *for* and so end up stuck there.
4/
I've been experiencing some challenging stuff in my personal life lately and yesterday, I just found myself unable to deal with my usual podcast fare so I tuned into the videos from the very last @xoxo, in search of uplifting fare:
https://www.youtube.com/@xoxofest
I found it. Talks by Dan Olson, @cabel, @edyong209 and many others, especially @molly0xfff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTaeVVAvk-c
5/
Cory Doctorow
Dan Hon