Buying and paying for services is not only an American virtue, it’s also a virtue of our fucked up system and the world we’re living in right now. We know that we deserve better. We’re known for our resilience, our personal and societal values and our thinking. Buy European and Be European!
Here’s suggestions on how you can minimise your dependence on apps and services. It’s not only a truly European value, but it not only helps your local businesses and also saves you in case of emergencies. Also: Make backups and store them in places other than your home.
My suggestions:
Print your photos, make photo books. Store your files on physical Hard Drives, print your most important documents and put them into folders. Make password protected backups on drives and give them to family members or close friends.
Get a real alarm clock, an egg timer, a DAB+ radio with a CD drive and Internet radio. Get a weather station. Store some music files on your devices with your favorite songs.
Download Wikipedia and store it on an external drive or on your phone. Have survival and emergency manuals and books at home. Keep your paper AND digital vaccination passes up-to-date!
Get paper timetables and maps from your public transportation provider. A foldable map of your area and learn how to navigate with it. Walk your streets, remember street names, shops and districts again.
Go to your local Library, get a free or really cheap membership there. Read physical and digital newspapers from the library. Use the computers and Internet access in the library. Play games on consoles at your library. Stream movies and music from your library. Rent tools for sewing or drilling Rent board and card games! READ BOOKS!
Get a paper notebook with a pen. Real Books, an eReader. A second-hand film- or digital camera. A calculator. A contact book and calendar.
A TAN generator for your online banking, if possible. Cash! For every day and emergencies.
Let’s add stuff to this list.
Or, just use apps from F-Droid. You don’t have to go totally Luddite to not use monitized software.
Using analog technology is fine. But it’s not the only alternative to paying for apps or becoming a product yourself. There’s a vast amount of OSS, free software for Android.
If you’re using Apple, you’re fucked, and, yeah, going analog is the only real option unless you can switch to Android - preferably a de-Googled phone. There are some nice options, at least one which isn’t available in the US.
How can I download a CD drive from F-Droid? :D No seriously, of course you should download from F-Droid instead of the Google Play Store. But why forget stuff from the past, when we’re still able to use it nowadays? As I said in another comment and you did too, no one needs to live under a rock. That’s not my point. The point is that a lot of things can be done in a much easier, cheaper and less intrusive way with analog tools.
Install Termux, then run this command:
cd /sdcard/Download && wget https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Sony_CRX310S-Internal-PC-DVD-Drive-Opened.jpgHere’s an even better option, didn’t know that it exists!