It is not without reason that the word "enshittification" has been created and became well-known ever since. The Internet is an eternal tug of war, where one team is composed of the companies providing services, and the other team is composed of the users or consumers of said services.
In this context, the first team wishes to maximize profits, while the second draws a rough line which determines what positions are acceptable, and sometimes lets itself get convinced that the cord may go a tiny bit more into the first team's territory.
Whenever technology evolves, the first team scrambles to put walls around it in order to monetize it the best they can. Today, I'd like to tell you what you, as a member of the second team, can do in those days to help build an Internet you can believe in!
After all, the walls are more frail than they look.
Discover alternatives
The word "boycott" usually refers to a temporary abstinence from a product because of some moral reason. With that definition in mind, I don't think you should be boycotting anything, the actions you need to take need to come from the idea that they're permanent. Otherwise, there's little learning that would have to be done.
To stop using a service on the Internet usually entails starting to use a similar one. Similar, yet it has differences that make it less convenient to use, at least at first. You will not properly learn how to deal with those inconveniences if you're gonna stop your boycott in a matter of days, or weeks even.
Furthermore, you will have little incentive to talk about your struggles. To talk about them is to give feedback to those that are behind such a service, and feedback can be so valuable!
It may also be that the alternative service you picked is not the right fit for you. Sometimes, you do need to call it quits and look for... alternatives to the alternative, sometimes you don't even need to call it quits, you can use both and see what's better.
Almost certainly, breaking the routine of using a website or a software or whatever that with which you're familiar will inconvenience you, for a time. That's just how it is, you're not going to learn new habits in a day.
Yet, it is worth it if it's not gonna have your morals weigh down on your mind whenever you use something from a company you dislike or straight up hate.
Using equals supporting
When you use something on the Internet, it's about the same as telling the ones behind that something that they are doing things right. If you are using Windows right now, you are telling Microsoft they were right to push all that AI stuff on their OS, because that didn't reduce their number of users.
For those providing services, numbers mean everything. It doesn't have to be an amount of money, simply the amount of users shows how many people are reliant on their services. During negative press, it's reasonable to say those users are "helpless without their services" rather than "reliant".
That is not to blame or shame the people that are more technologically inept than me, after all for the Windows example, the alternatives are:
- Apple's macOS, which is quite the closed garden with a different ecosystem
- Linux, which requires technical knowledge to install (xkcd 2501, nerds)
- Not using a computer at all
In my opinion, none of these alternatives are reasonable, at least when you're on your own. If you are in this specific case, ask your local nerd to help you out, they'd love to do that.
However, the Windows example is the rather extreme one. A much more realistic example would be the Twitter example. A billionaire bought that website to push far-right ideas, therefore it is a good idea for you to close your Twitter account and move on to preferably Mastodon or similar Fediverse websites, or even Bluesky though you'd probably have to face the same dilemma in like 4 years.
Note that of course, if you are on the far-right of the political spectrum, it'd make sense that you'd use Twitter, in fact please don't move away from it, I wouldn't want you to bring your hatred to other corners of the Internet.
Such social services are better dealt with with your friends, though, or your community. During those transitions, it'd be best if you still had the most important people with you, while waiting for the less important ones to join you. Either way, give them a push, and tell them on which service you're going! That's practically word-of-mouth, and you understand how that translates to supporting.
You are what you use
The Internet I want to give birth to is one where my data doesn't need to leave my homeplace (the European Union) in order to properly function, one where my data can be imported and exported from service to service as I decide to switch, no matter why I decide to switch. One where software being open-source is the standard.
An idealist one for sure, but one I believe in. It's an endeavour which needs to be taken step by step, sometimes I even take steps backwards, it's an endeavour where there's always stuff to deal with. The Internet you want to give birth to is likely different from mine to some extent, but they're most likely compatible.
How I use the Internet does reflect my vision, and it feels like I contribute to it as well. If everyone has their own idea of how their Internet should be, who else but me to bring my idea to reality?
And that's the same for you. Your idea of the Internet likely has some overlap with the idea of some other people, so build on top of what those other people have already built. You're not gonna reinvent the wheel, you probably shouldn't. That's why you will use another service, not build one from scratch.
Find the services that are right for you, and just in case maybe also look for services that may be even more right for you. The Internet is overwhelming, it has a lot of people, it has a lot of services, you will need to be thorough in your research to find the right thing, but it's likely that thing exists. You can ask around, too!
Admittedly, researching takes some skills as well. Unfortunately, helping you with that is out of the scope of this post, but if you're looking for a place to start, you can use services which you wouldn't want to use anymore, like hypothetically Google or AIs, and start from there. I don't think there's shame in asking an AI how to not use AIs anymore, if you catch my gist.
Conclusion
The Internet is composed of various Internets, each one of them imagined by an individual, most of them composed of roughly the same pieces in various arrangements. I think you should dare to imagine an Internet with pieces you either aren't aware of yet, or pieces you've been too scared to include.
Inherently, the Internet is social, so if you feel unable to bring your vision to fruition, ask for help! We are dealing with a complicated beast, it's only natural there would be struggles.
Being part of an Internet which doesn't quite match the one from your imagination can sometimes be too much to handle. This is the first post on this website that I've written in one single day, because it's easy for me to write about that, because it is a feeling that is all too familiar to me.
If you understand what I'm talking about, then don't let my post stop you any longer, please create an Internet that you love. Perhaps I'd love my Internet to overlap a bit with yours.