Ask Lemmy

Not really, no. In fact, I feel that free and open source tech is the only means we have of fighting back against big tech corporations and technofeudalism.

I think about the fact that I can use tailscale (or headscale, or even a DIY wireguard mesh network) to create a WAN that allows me to log into my home server and access an entire collection of music, shows, games, utilities and projects that I care about from anywhere in the world and I realize that I actually don't have much use for the "world wide web" anymore outside of work, shopping and social media.

Corporate social media, I should add, is becoming increasingly useless as it fills up with more bots, slop, and unhinged people, making the importance of the fediverse and self-hostable FOSS alternatives that much more important. While it's not always easy to get people to move away from corporate social media, the first step towards a more healthy future for society is, at least, the existence of an alternative.

The web itself is poisoned.

Why do you need "the web" at all? What websites and services are you using on a daily basis?

For me it's mostly the fediverse, a little bit of browsing reddit (i no longer comment or participate), github/gitlab, youtube, youtube music, twitch, amazon and the occasional other online store.

I have a script running on my PC which "backs up" all of my favorite youtube videos and music. I clone interesting repos to my home gitlab. I'm weaning myself off of reddit more and more all the time. I use the *arrs to through a VPN to get access to shows that I want to watch. I play some online games, but mainly ones that work peer-to-peer or have self-hostable servers. Unlike most people, I have basically zero subscriptions.

Reddit is already garbage and gets full of more and more AI slop every day (i really only continue to check it out of addiction/habit, and only to read from a bigger pool of comments when some fucked up shit happens). The minute youtube becomes useless to me for discovering or acquiring new media, I'll be done with it. I only check twitch for the network effect of the few small streamers that I like there, and usually only once a day.

I don't find that I need a lot from the corporate internet anymore.

Browsers are turning into tracking engines.

The great thing about FOSS is that there will always be someone who rips out the AI slop and tracking shit, even if that person ends up being you.

Sites rely on manipulation and dark patterns. Social media is full of misinformation and ragebait.

Stop going to those sites.

It feels exhausting to route around a web that’s already been captured.

The part I don't understand is why you feel that the problems of the WWW are at all relevant to your WAN?

So Facebook, Reddit and Youtube are a disaster... but what implication does that have on your private technology stack?

Why not trade the illusion of digital control for actual peace, get a dumb phone, a CD player, and check out books, movies, music, and games from the library as my entertainment?

Sure why not? Nothing wrong with that...

But why not also take those things from the library, rip them into a digital format, and store them on your server?

The "internet" is certainly in a death spiral. But I'll be fine because I understand that technology isn't the enemy, large corporations are. FOSS technology belongs to the people and we can wield it for our own benefit without any corporate or government gatekeepers other than our ISP (and maybe not even them...).