Just for context, I am that same dude from Twitter. After reading your replies, I remembered you had an FA so when I started my account move, I followed you with the new account as well and well...after most of it was done, I thought I'd go read some journals, that is how I got here ^^

> I've been sick of tech monopolies for years. I stopped using social media much & installed lineage OS on my phone w/o google services

S A M E ! I sold my iPhone a few weeks ago, punted WhatsApp entirely and use Facebook only so rarely, I actually have to use "Reset Password" almost every time. I refuse TikTok and avoid Instagram. But most importantly: The joys of a GApps-free phone are something else. Razer Phone 2 with LOS 18.1 (19.1 is available for me woohoo!) and microG. The battery life is crazy good, the available mods are awesome to help with that even further and alternatives like NewPipe really make a big difference.

If you haven't, I highly recommend NewPipe. It's great! But it's a "watch client" only, as in you can not make comments etc. Just watch.

> (...) it's become normalized to post those & algorithms rewarding outrage because it gets high engagements.

My highest interacted-with tweet is literally a complaint that I wrote during live-tweeting whilst watching a WWE Pay-Per-View. I textually groaned at a result and it ended up being my most liked tweet ever. Also, whenever I left a reply with controversal content (as in, having an actual founded opinion rather than white-knighting around) I got some really weird replys and patterns as to when it happens too. The algo sure is... awkward. And well, it keeps trying to convince me to become a stock broker ... like that ever worked for a normie >.>;

> I've stopped falling prey to that phenomenon of getting mad based on assumptions based on feelings & an oversimplified & false idea of how the world actually works because I saw some post

I hate it when this happens to family members or friends. When it's tech related, they'll usually come RUNNING to me and be all trying to stumble together terms they dont even know and trying to tell me it's the biggest thing ever - or ask what exactly happened. Recent example would be the WhatsApp ToS change which caught just about everybody off-guard that didn't pay attention. I knew about it when they first announced the ToS change, which is when I started to migrate to Telegram, and why dropping WA was just a matter of me waiting untill I move out of my current flat to no longer need to contact my current landlord via whatsapp xD. It makes me at least a little mad seing people fall for this crap...

> still facebook

Just wait. Its only gonna get worse ;) Cynicism aside, I feel like watching Facebook/Meta/Suckberg/whatever from afar is like watching the Titanic in slow-motion o.o I loved Facebook a decade ago and I was huge into it. But man... they really do their best to piss people off. *cough* account requirement for Oculus Quest *cough*

> i have to resize everything

I remember there being an F-Droid app called "Image Pipe", I think? It was ment as an in-between step for sharing to Instagram to do quick resizes and stuff... Might help, but I honestly am not sure if I butchered the name or not...

> why was FA auto shortening my journal title when i still had space?

The FA codebase is still very close to it's 2000's origins. Visually updated, somewhat patched and updated in parts at least during the IMVU aquisition and furry.digital situation - but other than that, its uh... its a thing o.o; An old thing, at heart.

oh crap that turned out longer than I thought o_o
Sorry for the wall! ^^;

it's all good!! i'll read ASAP just wanted to let you know if i don't reply for a while it's eye strain and exhaustion lmaooo

*literally just took eye medicine*
Hm... I think I know how you feel XD

Take your time. ^.^ Thanks for letting me know, much appreciated~

err was this a reply hold up i think i didnt do that right. i forgot how to use FA. smh

newpipe is great yeah! i stuck lineage OS with no google services on my motorola G7...power? i think the model is. it was a cheap phone i got cos my pixel XL died (hilariously, i removed all google shit from that one too) and lineage is supported. phone battery is great cos i'm not glued to it anymore. and google services eat so much battery life through background services. i spend most my time w the open source spotify app which has a lot of cool features i'm not 100% sure the normal one does? i can click diff genre tags and see all the music in my liked songs spotify tagged as that. it has an equilizer too. i also use antennapod and listen to A Lot of podcasts. open street map for navigation, added the uber mobile url to the home screen bc it literally just works i don't NEED the app, i check money + transport options before i leave the house & i use a paper diary. i can use raccoon APK to download APK files of google store and sometimes they complain that they need google services but work anyway lol. (side note: the raccoon apk dev is a giant arrogant asshole his blogs are a wild ride and embedded in the side panel of the app, like wtf bro) i don't do that often tho cos for anything i'm locked into, i just use bluestacks or an android VM for at home. cos it's like...blizzard authenticator. i don't need that on the go. and i use yubikey or its desktop auth app for everything else. i believe it also has a mobile app you get get off F-droid, though i haven't fucked with that yet. i'm leery even though it's probably fine (i'm 99% sure they're not the official devs of it. but i guess yubikey is a kind of protocol? i'll have to look into it)

and yeeeep the facebook company WHOMST I REFUSE TO CALL META BC ITS TJEM TRYING TO EVADE THE OLD REPUTATION OBVIOUSLY just got too deep into ads as an income business which took the entire internet down that route worse than ever as a result. like ads were always a thing in the 90s online but they weren't the reason people made stuff. there's a theory that he knows that if he doesn't move fast into a new technology he's done for, like how myspace was bc of FB, so this is why he's clutching onto the metaverse which is the most uninspired thing that VR chat is already doing and better than what he's proposing (business meetings in VR??? who the fuck WANTS THAT for accessability sure but he's making it out to be revolutionary.)

and yeah lol, i almost miss FAs old aesthetic cos it made me nostalgic for the early 2000s lmfaooo. like web brutalism which is my fave architecture type