Why can't I just say no?

I switched

“The first step feels small. Until you look back and see how big the difference is.”

I'm definitely over. From WhatsApp to Signal. From Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. From Windows to Linux. From Gmail to Proton. And yes, I know: I'm not the first. I feel like I'm swimming against the current. I have been using Signal for some time, but my surroundings never wanted to join me. Now I've made up my mind. No more compromises. No more support for companies that see fact-checking as a threat and give Trump millions to return to their platforms.

What I Lose, and Still Don't Miss

“Freedom comes at a cost. But there is more to it.”

I miss group apps. WhatsApp groups with friends, teams, colleagues, but I miss them consciously. And that makes it different. What I don't understand: Why does my choice evoke so much resistance? Why is it taken so personally? As if my move is a judgment of how others use their tools. It's not. I am simply choosing something else – because I believe it is necessary.

Why can't I just say no?

“If you say ‘no’ to Big Tech, it suddenly seems like an attack on your environment.”

I get Excel files where I just want to know how the calculation is made. PDF forms that only work in Acrobat Reader (Looking at you Belastingdienst). Relationships that expect me to return my work in .docx or .pptx. And every time I have to explain why I don’t want to – or even can’t. Like it's suspicious. Like I'm giving you a hard time. But if someone says to me, “I make a choice for reasons of principle’, I think: “OK, that's a given, how do I take that into account?”

The Social Price of Digital Principles

“The pressure to keep up is greater than I expected.”

I choose not to use WhatsApp. That means that I no longer participate in many group discussions. That's fine. But why does it feel like people are trying to convince me that I'm wrong? Why is my choice for privacy and open source not seen as something positive, but as something irritating or even arrogant? Even people I trust sometimes respond with: "Don't be so hard."

The bigger picture

“As long as we keep handing over control, nothing will change.”

This is not just about me, I see this in the bigger picture. Canada distances itself from the US. Facebook's role in political campaigns. Google is literally following every move. And Microsoft is proving that there's a kill switch for Office. We all know. And yet... we act like it's not so bad. It's like paranoia. As if you are no longer allowed to participate if you deviate.

Not a lament, but a signal.

“I don’t want to be right. I want us to wake up.”

I have thick skin. You have to, if you open your mouth in the Netherlands. I'm not writing this to feel sorry for you. I'm writing this because the reactions I get show that we don't feel the urgency. That we have come to find it normal to depend on a few American companies that are gaining more and more control over our lives.