Chris WiegmanThere are a lot of reasons to not rely on big-tech. Just watch the news of browse social media for a bit and you’ll be bombarded with issues from privacy to security to the platforming of hate and more. None of this should be news at this point.
I’ve been talking about leaving big tech behind for a long time myself and, if you’re hear, you don’t need to hear it from me again today. Instead, here’s a post from an ex-Google employee (according to his current GitHub account) on why you shouldn’t trust Google with all your data.
Removing Google as a Single Point of Failure – Jake Wharton
While it doesn’t get into all the issues, particularly privacy, it does show the dangers of relying on Google as an ecosystem in that they can decide to turn off access to your data.
I no longer trust them not to permanently lock me out of my account. And I say this as a current Google employee.
Jake Wharton
This isn’t a small risk either. Just searching for “lost access to Google” shows that it is a more common occurrence than many realize. There have been plenty of news stories on the consequences as well, from losing access to drive documents and photos to losing access to accounts that are either logged into with your Google account or rely on an email confirmation sent to a Gmail account you can no longer access.
There Are Alternatives
Thankfully, there are many alternatives to relying on Google. In his post Jake lists some as well as ways to back up other data so you would still have access in the event of a failure. Here are a few other resources for alternatives to big tech ecosystems including Google, Apple and others:
- My post on the alternatives I’ve moved to.
- PrivacyTools.io has a great list of privacy respecting tools of all kinds.
- Switching Software shows alternatives to all types of software and how you can replace them with ethical alternatives.
The fact is there are alternatives and they are often quite easy to get started with. Even moving a single service out of a tech ecosystem will guarantee you still have access to that service should you ever find your account has been deleted.