This page is a living document following the journey to divest myself of the products of a corporate culture that embraces enshittification.
The Table of Contents below will guide you to the most recent updates.
Introduction
I have been neglecting my socials for years.1 Why? They suck. Well, the environment sucks. There is so little content I actually want to see that makes it to my feed, and frankly, I don’t have the time to scroll through all of the ads and trolls. In late 2025, I read Chris Hayes’s The Sirens’ Call. An excellent book that lays out the social media environment at this point in time. We, the users, are the product, or at least our attention, our time, is the product. I am tired of giving it away for free; besides, I need it for myself anyway. Yesterday, I started reading Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification. Another excellent book. I have been unhappy understatement with social media and a corporate culture that is okay with abusive behavior for the sake of profit. Now it’s time to do something about it. I haven’t been using several platforms anyway, so why am I keeping my accounts open? FOMO?2 There is no rational reason to keep them open.
Present thinking is, in the current world, an academic and writer must have an internet presence, or they won't be able to promote research, or sell books, or get a book deal, for that matter. I reject this presumption, to a point. I do believe an internet presence is needed. I do not believe that garbage platforms are needed. What are garbage platforms? At the top of the list are Facebook and Twitter/X. Why are they garbage platforms? They prioritize the company's needs at the expense of their customers, users, and employees.
I will happily maintain a website, and I will explore social media platforms that resist the urge to enshittafy their platform. BlueSky seems like a good Twitter-like platform with solid decentralized features. For now, at least, BlueSky will be my social media platform of choice. I will continue to keep an eye out for other potentially viable social media platforms.
If you haven't already, read The Sirens' Call and Enshittification. Seriously.
My solution is not to abandon the internet. It is to reclaim my attention (Hayes) and refuse to support enshittafying (Doctorow) companies by not participating in their scams. I have no delusion that I am going to have an impact as an individual, and all I can do by way of activism is to encourage others. What I can do for myself is refuse to participate in their shenanigans and post about why and how I take back what is mine. On the social media side, reclamation isn’t all that difficult, I essentially abandoned most of the platforms a long time ago. I just need to formalize it by deleting my data and closing those accounts. Enshittified companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Amazon will be more difficult to extract myself from. I never jumped on the Apple bandwagon, so I can count myself lucky there. This is by no means a complete list, it’s just a handful of tech megacorps that have their greedy little fingers in everybody’s business.
Extrication will take time. I am working on a PhD that won’t be completed until late 2027, and I am deeply invested time and energy-wise in some of these companies’ products. I need to make my escape slowly, with strategic care, and without derailing or sidetracking my PhD. This is one of the reasons why I am choosing to document my exit, in hopes that I may save someone else a lot of hassle.
Social Media Accounts
At the time of this initial writing (February 2026), I have the following social media accounts:
Metadeleted 3/1Facebookdeleted 3/1Instagramdeleted 3/1Threadsdeleted Feb 12, 2026
Twitter/Xdeleted Feb 12, 2026- BlueSky
- Mastodon
- YouTube
Soundclouddeleted Feb 12, 2026Pinterestdeleted Feb 12, 2026- Substack
- Github
Twitter, Soundcloud, Pinterest
Twitter/X – The first to go. I have nothing nice to say about what has become of what was a wonderful platform. Done. Account deactivated February 12, 2026. I stopped using the platform over a year ago and posted that it wouldn’t be used anymore.
Soundcloud – I used this platform once last year for school. Many years ago, I used it occasionally. This was an easy decision. Done. Deleted account February 12, 2026.
Pinterist – I haven’t done anything with this account in years. Time to go. Deleted account February 12, 2026.
Meta
Meta is a little more complicated. Because it is the company and not just the three platforms I have been using. I don’t use Messenger, and didn’t list it. I don’t use Threads and can kill that off easily. Facebook and Instagram will take a little time. I deleted the Messenger app and the Threads app a while ago. Today, February 12, I posted the final posts on Facebook and Instagram, giving March 1 as my deletion date.
I said these were complicated, but really they weren’t. I rarely look at them anymore, and just closing the accounts makes sense. I hope people are already on BlueSky and will follow me there so we can stay in touch. If not, well, I guess that’s okay too.
Deshittification
Google, Microsoft, Adobe, & Amazon
Deshitifacation goes further than social media. There are other offenders that need to be dealt with. The following are enshittified companies and their products I need to dig my way out of. Google may be the most insidious because I have several Android devices.
- Google – No longer using any of their products.
(Gmail for Android only)
Switched to DuckDuckGo- Android – See Feb 16 Update
Chrome– Purged bookmarks and all browser data. Deleted app. 2/14Gmail– Purged all content. Maintaining for Android access only. 2/15- Calendar – Setting up sharable calendar for family.
- Microsoft
- OneDrive – Building a NAS and setting up a VPN
- OneNote – See Feb 16 Update
- Office – Installed LiebreOffice suite. Verifying no issues.
- Windows
Adobe– Closed accounts.Creative Suite– Deleted CC applications. Installed DaVinci Resolve and GIMP.Acrobat– Deleted.
- Amazon – Supplier of Last Resort
February 16, 2026 Update
OneNote and Android are looking like the most difficult things for me to get out from under. I rely heavily on OneNote; I use it every day for school and personal research documentation. I have tried Evernote in the past but when I installed it the other day, it looks like they have gone in a completely different direction that is not useful for me. I need to find another option for research notes before I can completely divest myself of Microsoft.
There is another fundamental part of deshittification, I don’t exist in a vacuum. I have a wife and son who share these services. This is my journey, they are invited, but I don’t want to impose these changes on them. Fortunately, my son didn’t mind switching from Adobe CC for his video editing and graphics work, so at least that one was easy. I don’t anticipate any difficulties with Microsoft Office either. I can replace the file backup system in-house as well and I am the only OneNote user. That leaves the OS. I’m fine with Linux, convincing the others to bail on MS Windows is a bit of a sell, but there is hope, they are not power users.
On a Lesser Scale (2/18/2026)
GoDaddy is one of those companies that was once a decent company, but over time has enshittified. I won’t go into details here just yet, but I have plans to move my hosting to private servers, which is one of those “it will take a while” situations.
Slow Progress (3/21/2026)
I am slowly making progress in my escape from the surveillance economy. I will have to make some internal network modifications and build a couple of servers before making any greater progress. What I can do is take smaller steps. If I want to buy something, I will take the time to search out a small business manufacturer, if at all possible, especially for things like tools. Books are more difficult. I will try to buy from a small publisher, like Lost Art Press, or look for a used copy somewhere else. Amazon is now the supplier of last resort.
On OneNote: I have looked into several possibilities, and the only thing that comes even close is a wiki. The biggest problem there is editing the text. I know it will take some time to work this out, and I will have to make some adjustments in the way I do, well… a lot of what I do. I use OneNote every day, many times a day. If there is one computer-based tool I use more than OneNote, it is the web browser. Nothing else comes close.