Nothing is free. If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.

Privacy (different from anonymity) has become more and more important to me, and Google had access to nearly every part of my life in one way or another. I’ve cut out Musk, Zuck and Bezos, and I’m now nearly completely Google free as well.

I’ve often heard “why do I care if Google reads my emails? I’ve got nothing to hide”. 2 great answers:

1. Unlock your phone and give it to me for an hour. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you don’t want privacy. Google does exactly that.

2. Speaking of privacy, why bother closing the stall door in a public washroom? You’re not doing anything wrong in there.

Yeah I’m on a few politics, open source, and tech communities and it’s pretty good, just an adjustment from the sheer volume of Reddit. I’m enjoying being a part of something quieter that really benefits from interaction at this stage, and I’ll probably post more because of that rather than just lurking. Reminds me of what Reddit used to be before it went mainstream.

Any input/recommendations/advice for someone just getting into the Fediverse?

How are you finding Lemmy? I dumped all but Reddit years ago but Reddits become the same as the rest so I just made the switch. Bit of a learning curve on Lemmy with the Fediverse and instances but I’m liking it so far. Honestly having less content and no algorithms pushing never ending feeds means I’ve cut my former “Reddit” time by like 75% haha.