How Did It Come To This?

Back in 2007, when my son came into the world, we were introduced to the iPhone. This was the beginning of The End. The end of what? My deep and unabiding love of technology. And so much more.

To be clear, the iPhone brought to the largest possible market a promise that was too good to be true: an always online computer that took pictures, played music, managed a calendar, and checked email. An executive I worked with at the time said with great accuracy, “Inside of 6 months I won’t need to take a laptop when I travel.” He wasn’t off by much.

This pocket miracle had everything I needed. It combined a camera with my iPod and cell phone. Three devices collapsed into one at a time when I was overtired and spread thin between a new baby and a crazy job. This device took all of the thinking out of where my stuff was and frankly solved a ton of problems that I had at the time. The best part? New apps and functionality was coming to it at a blinding pace. It was a tech revolution unlike anything seen before. And yes, I was there when computers went onto the internet. I saw AOL first hand. I was over on a dial-up provided by a telco engineer moonlighting as an ISP, so I saw the best and the worst of it land.

I was there when the blogs started to explode. When sites like Slashdot actually mattered. Before the world of locked in “platforms” for personal expression. This was in a time when SEO jockeys were seen as valuable members of the tech community. We can see how that worked out.

It really didn’t take long for phones to become Black Mirrors. Apps went from being something you bought once for $1.99 to something that costs $49/year in a recurring subscription model. We went from keeping things on local drives attached to our computers and sync’d to our phones to The Cloud. And all of it was made possible by the luxury good that is the Smart Phone.

Did you know people still think of Smart Phones as a luxury? Yeah, it’s usually when they’re talking about non-white or poor people who are on some kind of assistance but “Still have that smartphone!” This is where the madness lies.

When my kid started Elementary School, they sent us a link to an app. We had to install the app. Why? Because that was THE ONLY WAY TO TALK TO A TEACHER OR GET INFORMATION FROM THE SCHOOL.

Let me put it like this: No Smart Phone? You will NEVER know that your kid has an open house next Thursday.

Oh? And you wanted to make an appointment to see your doctor? You should really do that through the app! You can see your latest labs and get visit summaries. You can even download important forms. It might also be the only way to request a refill for your medication.

Still a luxury?

Have you been to a restaurant lately? Seen a QR code on the table because they don’t have physical menus anymore? Sure, eating out might be a luxury and it might be that doubly so because you’re using your cellular data to look at the menu.

Try opting out of those things. See how that goes. The amount of friction is incredible. But that’s not quite the worst part.

Inside of those apps there is a treasure trove of data for the developers who built them. How long did you spend on this interface? What buttons did you hit? Where were you when you hit those buttons?

Wait, what? Where were you? Of course you told it. You allowed the app access to your location so that you could check in when you got to the doctor’s office. Or to let the grocery store know that you were in the parking lot to get your order. Sure, there are ways for the operating system of your phone to dime out these apps when they check your location. And there is some granularity of control. But is that enough? And can you guaranty that those controls work?

No.

You can’t.

I used to love tech. I liked writing code. I liked playing with new devices and pushing hardware to do things that were on the edges of its capabilities. But now I know deep in my heart that every transaction on my phone is monitored and monitized. It’s heartbreaking.

What to do?

I would love to toss my iPhone in a recycling bin and be done with it, but that’s not reasonable. I need to be able to stay in touch with my kids and my aging parents. I need to be able to get refills for medication and know that there is a concert coming up at the school. But you know what I can do? I can make it hard on them. And I can pull everything that matters off of the corporate cloud and onto my own solutions.

I’m a smart kid. I can run a Debian server with Nextcloud and Wireguard. I can run my own Forgejo repository and, wait for it, even write and distribute my own iOS apps so that I can keep all of my data to myself.

That journey, on which I am currently embarked, is why I started this blog. I’m going to look at the hardware and software I’m using and, maybe more importantly, what I’m leaving behind as I move out onto the frontier of truly personal computing. I believe that there is a way to live my life with the tools of the day and not sacrifice everything about me to surveillance capitalism.

Fuck those guys.

Follow me…