
Tough times
WTF 2024?!
I don't think I'm alone in thinking 2024 wasn't the best year. For me it's been pretty hectic. In the 14 months since I last blogged I've changed jobs, bought a puppy, moved house and our daughter started secondary school. In the wider world we've had two big elections, had the warmest year on record, and the world's greatest superpower decided to elect a senile convicted felon, again.
Time to ditch the losers
At times like these, when the behaviour of those in power is so bad and the media so incapable of holding them accountable, living sustainably and ethically feels like rebellion. For me that means giving my attention and money to independent, ethical and sustainable tech, which respects my privacy and doesn't monetise my identity.
Better tech
Big Tech | Better Tech | Status |
Apple iPhone 13 mini | Fairphone 5 5G | Completed |
Apple iCloud | The Good Cloud | In progress |
Apple Music | TIDAL Music | In progress |
Macbook Pro | Framework 13 | Planned |
Mastodon | Completed | |
Nothing | Completed | |
Pixelfed | Completed | |
Tiktok | Loops | Completed |
Youtube | Peertube | Planned |
WordPress | Publii | Completed |
So far I'm the only person in my family making these changes, but once I've ironed out the wrinkles I'll be supporting my family in following me as far as they want, starting with Apple iCloud and Apple Music, and going from there.
I'll write more later about my experience of moving to more sustainable tech and how I've found the alternatives, but having just finished migrating this blog today I wanted to write about my move from WordPress to Publii.
WordPress to Publii
A common theme amongst the most toxic big tech companies is the absolute state of their CEO's. Some are your regular capitalist oligarchs; giving the appearance of being a human being with a moral compass whilst running huge monopolies, monetising your identity and generating a country's worth of CO2. Their only concern is growth, and they'll do anything to achieve that, whatever the impact on the planet, the people who live on it and the people who use their enshittified services.
Some however stand above their peers, their behaviour more like a toddler or an insecure teenager then a grown man (and they're always men). I realised Matt Mullenweg (CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress) had fallen into this category when for some reason he decided he had a problem with WP Engine. Not content with starting a legal fight on dubious grounds, he then decided he had a problem with everyone in his organisation who disagreed with him, and then with the entire WordPress community.
This was the point I decided to vote with my feet, and take the opportunity to try out a static site (which means just HTML and CSS code, and nothing else). After doing a bit of research I picked Publii, on the basis that it was easy to use, fast and privacy focused.
The site you're on now is the result. It's faster than it was, there's no tracking cookies, I'm not capturing any personal data, there are no social plugins and there's no application, database or plugins to maintain and patch. I hope you like it.
Anyway, despite the dystopian feel to 2025 (or because of it) I will be back and posting more, covering my experience of more ethical and sustainable tech, and the occaisional rant at the industry.