Agreed. And when you think about, everything is unproductive, really. You are here for a short period of time, and nothing is productive in the grand scheme of things. How does the universe benefit from what Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates have achieved? Absolutely not at all. The Earth is a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the Universe. Just live life and do whatever you want. Enjoy this weird existence that we somehow all were blessed (and cursed) with. Nobody knows why or how we are even here, so just enjoy it as much as you can, while you can.

I used to feel the same way sometimes, but then I thought about it for a while, and reflected on my own life as well. I see all these people around me that are busy pursuing fancy degrees and high-paying jobs. But at what coast? I thought to myself that following societal norms/expectations does not seem fulfilling or interesting to me at all. Why would I want to do things I don’t enjoy, just because it’s what everybody else is doing? No. I decided not to worry about it, and just do whatever I feel like doing, regardless of what other people think about it. If you enjoy laying in bed all day, reading Lemmy content, and nothing else, then fine. Do it. You are not wasting your life because you don’t do what everybody else is doing. You are wasting your life if you don’t do what you want to do, that’s it.

Migrate her over to a Federated alternative. No aggressive algorithms here

I am not talking about the posts. Of course those are public, as they should. There’s a big difference between data I willingly put out vs. metadata and the likes.

There’s a huge difference between what I choose to put out in public vs. data that’s being collected on me just by browsing the site. Saying “it’s just the world we live in” is just an excuse to ignore the real issues. It is more crucial now than ever that we create a system that’s by and for the people, not Big Tech and governments.

Anonymity is not the reason why many platforms have turned into “dumpster fires”. Have you checked Facebook lately? People literally use their real names while lighting the whole dumpster on fire. No, privacy is more important now than ever. If I had to list all the ways our data is being used against us nowadays, I would exceed the character allowance on here. The short version is that historically, time periods were named after the materials civilization made their weapons out of (stone age, bronze age, etc.). That’s the reason why the current time period is called the Information Age. Data/information is the biggest weapon we have nowadays, and that’s why it’s critical that we protect it with all means possible if we want to retain our freedom.

Yeah exactly. And I am not an expert in this field either, but of course there’s a solution, one way or another. The purpose of my above comment was simply just to call out the mindset of a lot of the people on here, whom obviously have no clue about FOSS and privacy, but simply just came over from Reddit. We are at war against Big Tech these days. Our privacy is at risk and our data is being used for population control. It is vital that we have projects like the Fediverse that can counter this, but we will only be successful and win this war if we can implement some true privacy.

So you think this is just my problem? No, this is the entire community’s problem. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending like everything is okay is the mindset that has caused so many great freedom-oriented software projects to fail. If you are not on board with creating a better system for the future internet, then why are you even here?

There’s a huge difference between Reddit keeping our data “locked away” on their private server vs. a system that puts it all out in public view. You can bet your behind that Big Tech and governments are harvesting ALL of it as we speak. This is MUCH worse than Reddit just selling some data to a few third party actors.

Well, I am not a developer in this field, so I don’t know what’s possible, and what’s not. All I know is that this needs to be fixed one way or another, or this whole platform will fail. If our information is all available publicly, we will be better off just using Facebook/Reddit/Twitter - at least these platforms don’t leave our data out in public view. We need to stop saying what’s not possible, and instead talk about what is possible.

Exactly. When data like that is public, I can guarantee you 10000% that Big Tech and governments are harvesting ALL of it as we speak. If this issue is not resolved and TRUE privacy is not implemented sooner rather than later, Lemmy will not succeed in the Fediverse, period.

Not to sound harsh or anything, but those of you saying that it’s okay that all this data is public are insane. This completely goes against the entire philosophy of the Fediverse and FOSS in general. The reason we all are fleeing from Big Tech is because they collect so much data on us. At least, they keep it hidden from public view. This is a major issue in my opinion, and needs to be addressed ASAP before we can claim to have superior platforms on the Fediverse. Why can’t this data at least be encrypted?

KeePass is awesome. We have a new community on here dedicated to KeePass. You should come join at !keepass

This 10000%. It’s the only thing that bothers me about Lemmy so far.

Definitely the latter lmao

Bitcoin. It’ll pay off in the long run, trust me.

I just hope that most people will be open-minded and that most instances will federate. But that’s probably being optimistic.