It took me the better part of a week to get this post going. I kept having to stop, collect my thoughts, and get back to it. I haven’t been worked up about something like this in a while.
In the middle of figuring out how I wanted to frame this piece, I wrote a quick Linux Journal entry detailing how I’d managed to fix some issues that had been bugging me. When I first started that journal entry, I was on the verge of becoming frustrated which, of course, summoned that little voice in the back of my head that whispers: “Just give up. Who cares if you need to use a Microsoft account and Windows? It’s just so much easier!”
I paused.
The gist of is is this:
I really don’t think the majority of people really understand just how much of our lives we’ve slowly, but surely surrendered to Big Tech and I also don’t think we realize just how complacent we’ve become to it all.
We live our lives almost entirely on devices that dictate how we do, well, most everything, and the main selling point that all of these tech companies hit on is Ease Of Use and Convenience.
In short, they’re telling you that they’re removing the friction from your life.
While my family has discussed friction in the past as it pertains to life in general, the best analogy is taking a vacation. The idea of paying more for a vacation may look like the perceived addition of things, but it’s actually the removal of one single thing: friction.
Yes, the resort/cruise brochure may tell you that the bed is bigger, the beach/pool is private, the drinks are premium, and the food is five star, but they also lean heavily on “we do everything for you”. They tell you you’ll have a butler and invite you to sit back, relax, and not worry about anything. In the back of your mind you’re really thinking “I don’t have to deal with any of the normal bullshit like standing in line for half an hour at the buffet or not being able to find chair at the beach.” At its core, this is a lack of friction.
And remember: If friction is removed, it is always removed at a cost.
Last year we decided to try one of these all inclusive places that advertises Complete Lack Of Friction®™. We decided to pay extra for what they called The Diamond Club. We wanted to sit back, relax, and not worry about anything. We took them at their word.
Of course, this vacation turned out to be one of the most frustrating, friction filled experiences we have ever gone through; The whole food experience sucked, the booze experience sucked, the “private” the beach area was a crowded joke and the “luxury” amenities were sub par at best. 1
Even though we had shelled out for the top of the line package the resort offered, at every turn we were told that if we paid just a little more for this and a little more for that, then a little more friction would be removed. The entire week was nothing more than dealing with microstransactions.
The costs to get a better seat at the beach was not only monetary transaction, but a sense that we’d been swindled. We did end up paying some extra for a beach cabana just so we could salvage some sort of good memory that week. But deep down we were angry simply because we had to pay for something that should have been included in The Diamond Club experience we were promised.
Think about that, then think about the phone in your hand or the computer you’re looking at.
Most modern technology is sold to us on the idea of less friction. Everything is easy. Everything is more convenient. And that’s not really true, is it?
While everyone seems to understand, at least on a base level, what the costs are for all the FREE and EASY platforms we use are (we are the product), what gets us is that these costs seem to change every time we get settled into whatever cost we just accepted last time around.
- Our data scraped and sold to the highest bidder again and again.
- Algorithms tweaked to make us stay on the platform and and become angrier and angrier.
- Apple sells, supremely overpriced hardware that locks you into an ecosystem that so rife with greed it has become little more than a way to push shitty apps on you so Apple can get their cut of each and every microtransaction.
- Microsoft will push out a marginally better performing version of Windows that tracks you and forces ads on you. Now the company is shovelling half assed AI garbage into its products.
- Google: We know it’s all about Ads and Tracking and Slop, oh my!
The shitty part is that even after we pay these costs, even after all the promises of Ease Of Use and Convenience, the tech that is foisted on us is so ridiculously user hostile it’s almost laughable. These companies keep shovelling more shit at us in the form of “new features” which may appease a small handful of people but will achieve little more than frustration for the rest. And we’re told that if we pay just a little more with a subscription, or a little bit more via an in app microtransaction, then a little more of the friction will be removed.
Growth at all costs capitalism got us where we are today. All of these companies need to make more than they did last quarter or last year. The shit we’re dealing with now is born from the growth mindset coupled with a complete lack of new, real ideas.2
I’m waking up to the idea that little bit of friction goes a long way.
If these products we are being forced to use at the cost of our data and privacy are so fucking horrible to use, even after we decide to pay fees on a good number of them, then why not just stop paying the heavy costs and instead allow the friction? Why can’t we just step outside of our comfort zones and investigate what technology exists besides these monopolies offer (and market to us that they’re our only hope)?
I think I’ll be spending the next few months working, I mean really working to untangle myself from these fucking tech behemoths. I know it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take some time and patience. We need to remember that not everything has to be easy. That’s part of the problem today. We have all conditioned to expect that everything needs be so easy 100% of the time.
Nothing is perfect and there will be some steep learning curves a ton of friction but, goddammit, isn’t that what it’s all supposed to be about? Where we’re at right now and, more frighteningly, where we’re headed is all just too much.
I’m choosing to embrace friction.
1: We took the place up on their spa experience which turned out to be only marginally worse than soaking in the tub at home.
2: I’m pretty sure Netflix raised their subscription prices recently because they don’t have anything new (especially AI related) to add to the product coupled with the fact that there are a finite amount of people on the planet with access to jobs and credit cards. I can picture a meeting in my head: “How can we show growth?” … “Why don’t we just just jack up the subscription prices?” … “I LOVE IT!”
