What kind of pre-enshittification tech do you all use? Stuff where ppl look at you like you’re an alien b/c nobody does it that any more.
Me ->
Oldschool offline mp3 player rather than Spottify or other streaming or phone app, to use when running.
Paper books rather than e-books.
DRM free games I buy on GOG to avoid rootkitting my own comp.
Wired speakers rather than smart speakers.
Old ass pre-connected car.
Prob more but I can’t think of it all rn.
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Wired headphones.
Component hifi with floorstanding speakers.
Older car with cable-driven throttle and clutch.
Rotary-dial landline phone (not even kidding)
Vinyl records.
Home theatre PC.
Component desktop tower PC.
Basic Casio digital watch.
Wired speakers. But connected to wiim because I like music discovery. Not that shit though.
Wired earphones
Cash
The car is a 2014. Not internet connected but still has a black box.
I’ve been playing local mp3 for decades. Along came streaming but I didn’t see a reason to switch.
My laptop is a 2017 T-470 Thinkpad running Fedora44. Old machine, new software.
I use Syncthing and external hard drives instead of cloud storage.
I don’t own a TV.
Not a single smart appliance in the house.
Termux on Android devices
To give an example yesterday walking down the street I had an idea for a prototype (basically every morning my phone would generate an ePub with calendar, map of the area, notes, articles to read, etc) but I didn’t use some fancy voice assistant, no I started Termux on my phone, mkdir, echo idea > file, etc.
I have notes on my wiki on https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SwappingPartsOfTheRestrictionStack on doing this kind of stuff on more than phones, VR headset, IoT, etc. Typically the heuristic is to still by modern hardware flash an open source firmware or OS then connect it to your tools that are already not enshittified or de-enshittified
Alphasmart keyboard to type notes when I’m out and about then transfer it to a VimWiki journal entry when I get home with a single button
iPod video modded with things like USB C and more storage
Retro “inspired” tv. Essentially, my old CRT didn’t survive a move and I replaced it with a replacement iPad 3 screen, a 3D printed body, and an analogue scaler so I can still plug my ps2 into it. It’s not really the same but it was a fun project.
Original gameboy with LSDJ so I can make chiptunes (though at this point, I’ve replaced it with the Dirtywave M8 entirely)
Tech of the non-electric variety:
Inkle loom, rigid heddle loom, and floor loom for various weaving
Spinning yarn on a spinning wheel and drop spindles (also have a 3D printed DIY e-spinner because the spinning wheel is so temperamental)
TUIs and CLIs.
Wired speakers gang.
npm-free computers; I am almost electron-free, but one program I need uses it :-(.
Still using X11. I try Wayland once a year, and it hasn’t not sucked yet.
Linux mobile phone, despite much pain and suffering (it’s not þere yet)
I love TUIs and CLIs!
I need to work on de-Electron-ing my PC. I’ve fully gotten rid of Flatpak, though.
Why do you view X11 as better? I’ve tried both, and I don’t get it.
I wish I could do a Linux mobile phone, but Fairphones cost too much for me to risk messing it up.
edit: hey a fellow þorn enjoyer! i need to work on using it more
And the thorn too surely? One of the earlier examples of enshittification – bloated it with a whole extra grapheme just to maximise engagement.
They’re from before my time, but I collect cassette tapes. Other than that, I try to buy digital stuff DRM-free, and use FLOSS over proprietary slopware. I really hate bluetooth for audio because it sounds so bad.
Oh and I have a pocket-watch.
None. I usually just buy new tech and then deshittify it 😅
IPod classic 5th gen with a 512gb sd card and higher capacity battery
Gameboy advance with a backlit screen, rechargeable battery and a flash cart
Library card for borrowing cds and dvds to rip
2022 thinkpad running arch
Film camera
And I dont connect my tv to wifi
Thanks for reminding me to fix my old iPod!
I miss my GBA :/
There’s plenty of options for a small emulator handheld if you’re will8ng to forgo getting OG hardware or hardware emulator devices that can read from carts.
Check out !sbcgaming@lemmy.ml or the same name sub on that other site if you’re willing. Hmm maybe !retrogaming@lemmy.world as well probably.
A CRT is mandatory for videogames! Also many old audio stuff is superior in quality, like old portable CD players or wired headphones, it doesn’t surprise me that many people today still want vintage tech.
Old audio stuff is definitely higher quality in a lot of ways. Also I so need to get a CRT.
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Analog art or crafts (get your crayons out, kids, or put on your smocks because we’re painting today). My fave media personally right now are crayons, chalk, or oil pastels for drawing or water-based markers and a brush pen filled with water or watercolors or acrylics + watercolor crayons for painting currently. Like, Crayola markers are really fun to paint with when you go to blend them with a wet brush.
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If going digital, using open alternatives to the Adobe suite, I personally use a combination of RawTherapee and GIMP for editing photos because it works for me so far.
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You can still buy used older digicams that are still respectable even by modern standards, there’s plenty of old DSLRs which fit that bill, for example, even going back as far as '07 with the Sony a900 boasting a resolution that is still by all means a very respectable resolution by modern standards at 24.6MP, plus it should be able to work with the entire A-mount range even going back to legacy screw-drive lenses, let alone ‘modern’ Sony servo-drive A-mount glass.
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You could buy a bunch of CDs and rip them to FLAC, and then transcode those lossless rips to lossy copies as desired, eg. transcoding them to 160-510kbit/s* Opus copies for storage-limited devices.
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