blog.mjb.im

Over the past couple of years, I've been focusing on getting myself decentralized on the internet. I've largely pulled out of any one ecosystem, and I've moved towards more privacy-respecting services like ProtonMail and write.as.

As a part of this movement, I'm also trying to go back to being responsible for my own data. The “”““cloud”“”” has become ubiquitous and I'm pretty over it. I appreciate the convenience for sure, but I don't appreciate when services I depend on are sunset or unavailable, which even in 2019 is still a problem.

I used to not understand people who still want 256 gigs of internal storage on their phones. Now, I get it.

I'm currently trying to reclaim my music library. It is a difficult task. Beyond retrieving the files from Google Music, I now need to seek out all the albums and tracks that I “added to my library” rather than uploaded or purchased. Google said they'd be transferring their music service over to YouTube Music, which is not something I want to use, nor does it seem like it will support the same features I care about in Google Music.

Beyond music, I've dropped my dependency on Google Drive significantly, opting for an independent, encrypted solution. The biggest holdouts I have are calendaring, because the only real options I can find seem to be Google, Microsoft or Apple-based, and photo management, because Google Photos is really good. Though, I'd like to find something I can move to that has similar functionality without doing the creepy facial scans.

All in all, I just want to feel like I actually own my data again. I don't want to be subjected to the will of the service provider. I'm hoping as we move on with a new era of people living in the digital age, we see more people seeking this kind of ownership again, leading to a federated / individual focused renaissance.