I believe in an open internet, FOSS, privacy by default, etc. I migrated away from Google by self-hosting Nextcloud. I prefer messaging apps like Molly, SimpleX, Threema, Matrix, etc. over standard SMS. I love the Fediverse (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc.).

But everyone I live with and everyone I know simply refuses to take part. I can’t interact with them socially because they’re all on Facebook. I can’t communicate with them because they all use group texts for SMS/RCS. I feel like I’m living in a different part of the world and am completely disconnected from everything that’s going on around me (with the people I want to interact).

My question is: does anyone else experience this, and how do you reconcile it? I want to share photos and clever posts with my family but they aren’t on the Fediverse. I want to communicate securely with them but they only want to SMS. I want to share documents but they only use Google Docs.

There are people I’ve met on the Fediverse and through some secure messaging apps with whom I’ve struck up a rapport, but these are still (predominately) strangers, and I’d really like to involve the people I care about in these exciting new times. They just wont participate.

I feel like I’ve invited everyone in my family to go on a great, grand vacation away and I’m the only one who’s packed.

  • starlordOP
    4·
    1 year ago

    A variety of answers, including but not limited to:

    • I don’t want to learn another new thing.
    • There aren’t enough other people I regularly contact using it.
    • I already have this thing, why add another?
    • I don’t care about the benefits of switching so why would I?
    • I like what I have.

    Again, I can understand these reasons. (Especially universal adoption; it’s hard to get someone to switch to a messenger that almost nobody they talk to is using, just so they can talk to you.) But I’ve made my choice for a variety of reasons to which I wholeheartedly subscribe and don’t want to go back, but it’s had the effect of isolating me.–