I am a product of a much more optimistic era of the Internet. In elementary school my very cool science teacher gave us all GMail invites (back when they were rare currency!). In middle school I sat around in AIM gossiping and awkwardly flirting with my classmates. By high school everybody who was anybody had a Facebook account and I remember begging my parents to create one. As a college student Reddit and Discord formed the backbone of the communities I’d found around video games.
At the time I recall how optimistic everyone was for these platforms. We were just transitioning out of the era where amenities like an email address were only something you got with a paid service, and the idea that big companies like Google were going to give you a seat at the digital table for free was exciting. You didn’t have to be a tech whiz or shell out money to somebody, you could just build your community on Facebook or Reddit and reach millions of people overnight.
It is becoming more clear with each passing day how the free-as-in-beer platforms that defined social media come with many strings attached. The slow slide of Facebook into an unrecognizable stream of slop has been plenty well documented at this point. Reddit is on their own way there as they “monetize” by shoehorning in ads and an AI integrations, while their “updates” to the UI and the API slowly remove features and options. The tech titans have all too willingly caved to the prying eyes of privacy-eroding state actors even as they’ve shown a new willingness to nickel and dime their users.
Discord was once the joy of the gaming world. Gone were the days where you had to cajole your buddy with a bit of spare cash into hosting a Teamspeak server. Now you could have a voice and text chat server of your own with emojis and roles and bots and everything for the low low price of $0. Discord promised none of the stodginess of corporate platforms like Skype. They had a cool mascot and you could be cool if you used it too. We all wanted to be cool.
Today Discord announced that starting next week they will require users to verify their age either by uploading their ID for human verification (they swear they delete this data, but so does everyone who ever had it leaked) or using AI facial scanning tools. The reaction of the pockets of the internet I hang out in is mostly dismay. How could Discord, one of the cool companies, betray us like this? I mean sure they added ads a while back and all the little nudges to purchase nitro are getting annoying but pervasive ads are just the cost of free services right?
Perhaps I am just growing curmudgeonly with age, but I have decided that no longer will I be surprised by this rug pull. The freemium software platforms on offer by Big Tech (and those who seek to join their ranks) trade control for convenience, and sooner or later that lack of control will be used to milk you for a quick buck. Many of these products build up a reputation initially of being open and fresh and offering a platform from those not well served by existing structures, but time and time again they will mortgage that reputation to the hilt as soon as it can make them a nickel.
What is there to be done? A principled stand has an appeal, but a total boycott of unfree software is not remotely practical. LinkedIn has always sucked but doing a job search without one in this day and age is painfully difficult.
I think it starts with being willing to say no to convenience. Truly open platforms and tools just are not going to be more convenient than the hosted managed ecosystem of freemium. They rely on the user to maintain and improve the user experience, and that process is slow. Costs (for hosting, for content, etc.) must be paid up front. But ultimately they are sustainable and they care about their users needs in a way that freemium never will.
Which leads to another guiding principle, I am going to start looking more for community. When I think about some of the software I’ve used that I have liked and that has stayed good over the years (GNU Emacs and Liquipedia come to mind, among many others) they are sustained by a community of people who like using them and want to make them better. Their unencumbered licensing makes them resistant to capture by a single financial interest, but ultimately it’s the community that makes them good. Community is who insists on fighting for user experience, and who implements and pays for those improvements.
But I suppose most importantly I’m just going to be treating the relationship I have with freemium software as adversarial. “FOSS or die” isn’t a threat, it’s just an eventuality. If you give over control of your tech to someone who’s just looking to make a buck off you, they will pull the rug out from under you as soon as it’s profitable to do so, and that day will come sooner or later. I’m not a Luddite. I’m just tired of building my house on sand.