Let's normalize sharing the tech we use - and the platforms we purposefully avoid. I'm sharing my tech stack in this post to let you judge for yourselves if I'm "walking the talk" when I discuss resistance to Big Tech.
In this age of technofeudalism every writer who covers technology - especially resistance to Big Tech - should disclose their tech stack. Here's mine
There is a word I can’t get out of my mind, since learning about its meaning; it perfectly captures the turbulent political and technological shifts the world is going through: “technofeudalism.”
The rise of technofeudalism
The term has been popularized by former Greek finance minister
Yanis Varoufakis, who
wrote a book on the topic. The
Wikipedia page for “technofeudalism” reads:
“Technofeudalism is a term used to describe a modern economic system where big technology companies have power similar to feudal lords in the past. Instead of land, these companies control digital platforms, data, and online markets. People and small businesses rely on these platforms, just like peasants once relied on feudal lords for land and protection.” In short, “digital platforms have built a system where power is concentrated in the hands of a few, making it harder for smaller players to succeed.”
Now, call me a Pollyanna but I strongly believe that in this brave new world every writer - from small time bloggers to prominent journalists writing for well known publications - should disclose the tech stack they use; especially people who write about technology.
Aligning words with actions
In the past few months I have been disappointed many times from the discovery of tech use by writers who purport to be voices of resistance against Big Tech. I wrote about this issue in April: “
This is what resistance to the digital coup looks like”.
This is what resistance to the digital coup looks likeTechnological platforms are not neutral. If we truly want to resist the digital coup that is currently under way, we need to normalize the use of free, open source solutions.
Elena RossiniElena Rossini
If you don’t feel like reading the full article, here is a short recap: I watched a brilliant
TED Talk by journalist Carole Cadwalladr about the broligarchy titled “this is what the digital coup looks like.” Shortly thereafter I discovered that Cadwalladr is using Substack (the Nazi-friendly newsletter platform funded by the broligarchs at A16Z) for her blog; her social media platform of choice is Bluesky (funded by crypto bros at Blockchain Capital). Sadly Cadwalladr has no social profiles on the Fediverse and isn’t using - as far as I know - any FOSS platforms to publish her reporting. This feels incredibly incongruous.
Recently, some people raised objections over a presentation Cadwalladr did with other leaders of the Big Tech resistance: Roger McNamee (author of “
Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook catastrophe” - a piercing critique of Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg who was once McNamee’s mentee) and Carissa Véliz (author of “
Privacy is Power”). The event took place on Substack as a live video… and in order to participate people had to sign up via email. An
irate man replied to a Bluesky post publicizing the event: “
Why do I have to type my email address to watch your video called ‘Privacy is Power’? FFS!!!!”
As someone positively repulsed by Substack - a platform that openly refuses to moderate or demonetize Nazi-friendly, racist, homophobic and transphobic content - I was deeply disappointed to find out that even Roger McNamee and Carissa Véliz had fallen into the Substack trap. Sigh.
I have a third - and final - anecdote for you: tech reporter Taylor Lorenz last week broke the scoop that Substack had sent a push alert to some users promoting a Nazi newsletter that included sickening hate speech. The pop up notification even showed a swastika (which was the avatar of the newsletter). Lorenz’s scoop was picked up by many tech publications, but here is a twist: Lorenz herself uses Substack as her publishing platform. According to her page she has 87,000 readers there.
Lorenz complained on Bluesky that “people have been harassing her” about her choice to stay on Substack… but when she set up a Patreon as a way to get off the platform, “only 3 readers backed her work there.” Because Lorenz relies on paid subscriptions to make a living, she says she has no other choice but to stay there.
I resuscitated my
dormant Bluesky account to reply to her posts, gently pointing out that Substack is the most expensive newsletter platform, taking a 10% cut out of all paid subscriptions.
I linked to a post by Molly White that broke down the differences between Substack and other platforms like Ghost and Beehiiv and also included the link to an article by Micah F. Lee on the same topic: “
Not only is Substack right-wing broligarchy garbage, it’s way more expensive than Ghost.” Lorenz replied that “
I cover Substack and the only reason I got the scoop I got it from being on the platform. Hence I’ll always have an account.” I replied that Ghost offers a concierge migration service (that would include seamlessly moving over her paid subscribers for free) but didn’t hear back from her.
Even Molly White entered the discussion via Bluesky, disclosing she migrated 21,000 subscribers off of Substack in early 2024 and everything went smoothly. Lorenz replied that “for the things she wants to do Ghost is too expensive”… and “also no discovery.”
I believe that the platforms and apps we use send an important message about our values. Never in a million years would I ever use Substack or anything by Meta. It’s too easy to say “I need to stay because this platform is free and it gives me reach.”
Bold statement ahead but I think Lorenz and Cadwalladr (and McNamee, lest you call me a misogynist) are on the wrong side of history.
There is another way, an ethical way, and giving in to platforms run by the Broligarchy is an implicit endorsement of their ways.
What is the ultimate goal of the Broligarchs? Establish and benefit from a system of technofeudalism, where they control information, communication between people, private data and access to essential services… with the illusion that their way is the ONLY way.I have a modest little blog where I write about the Fediverse and my adventures in self-hosting. It’s about time I disclose what my tech stack is - so you can judge for yourself if I’m “walking the talk” – aligning my actions with my words.
Tech I AVOID on purpose (for ethical reasons)
Meta: I deactivated my Facebook account in 2017; deleted my WhatsApp* account in January 2020, and deactivated my little-used Instagram and Threads accounts in November 2024.
*I recently had to use WhatsApp to keep in touch with teachers at an afternoon summer program my 4-year-old attended so I used a burner phone for it (old iPhone, totally empty) with a brand new Apple ID, a pay-as-you-go number and a 30-day eSIM for data. I see anything by Meta as spyware so no way I would grant them access to a device where I have my real, complete address book and photo galleries.
X: I had three Twitter accounts from 2008 to 2022 (two of them verified) that I stopped using and set to private when EM took over… and finally deleted all of them when DT was reelected. (My old usernames were taken over within 2 weeks, sigh).
Snap & TikTok: I don’t use these platforms.
LinkedIn: I put my mostly inactive account in hibernation in November 2024.
Google: I “DeGoogled” in November 2024 and moved my mail and calendar elsewhere (a privacy-respecting, open source, paid service)… my Google account is still technically active and I posted my Fediverse promo video on YouTube to reach people outside the Fediverse, but that’s about it.
Substack: I quit it in January 2024 in favor of
Ghost.org. I initially had a Ghost(Pro) account but since the spring of 2025 I’ve been self-hosting it.
Dropbox: I stopped using it in November 2024 and I’m now hosting my own
NextCloud instance.
Tech I USE and LOVE
My main messaging app is
Signal. I was fortunate to convince nearly all my friends and loved ones to move our conversation to it when I deleted my WhatsApp account in January 2020.
On the social media front, I post daily on
Mastodon (
@_elena@mastodon.social), which I consider my main social media account. I also run a self-hosted
GoToSocial instance (
@elena@aseachange.com) where I discuss my self-hosting adventures.
I occasionally publish my photos on
Pixelfed (
a self-hosted instance) and videos on
PeerTube (also
self-hosted, thanks to
YunoHost).
I have a
dormant Bluesky account on which I don’t post but keep track of friends and interesting people from my Twitter days - who sadly never made it to the Fediverse. I post the occasional reply (as I mentioned earlier) for topics I consider important, if the original poster can only be reached there.
As I mentioned before, for file sharing and storing information in the cloud I use my self-hosted
NextCloud (which now replaces Dropbox and WeTransfer for me).
I use
Wordpress (self-hosted) for
my personal site (a portfolio of my filmmaking work) and
Ghost.org for this
blog/newsletter.
My VPSs (powering my blog and Fediverse instances) are from a company based in Lithuania. I am purposefully avoiding US-based CDN Cloudflare and use
BunnyCDN (origin: Slovenia) and
Varnish Cache (origin: Norway) instead.
So far so good on the software front. Hardware? Not so much.
Hardware stack: still reliant on Big Tech, sigh
My oldest tech gadget that I still use daily is a 12-year-old
Kindle (4th gen) - sigh. I got a similar model on eBay (5th gen) and I plan on learning how to “jailbreak” it to set myself free from Amazon’s hold over my eBooks.
I work / edit films on a
MacMini M4 but I’m also learning Linux via my
Raspberry Pi 5 (on which I installed Ubuntu).
I have a
refurbished iPhone 13 Pro - bought recently via
Backmarket - but my next main phone will be a
Google Pixel with
GrapheneOS.
I definitely want to have more FOSS devices going forward (I’m still under the stronghold of Apple and Amazon for important things).
Looking ahead
It’s a bit of a letdown to end this on a not so positive note, acknowledging shortcomings in my hardware and dependence on Big Tech. But I think it’s key to point out that for the entirety of my adult life, up until October 2024, I was using commercial social platforms (Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn); Gmail was my main email account; I shared and organized my files on Dropbox and I thought VPSs were only for technical people.
Fast-forward 10 months and I’m now off of Big Tech social platforms; I’m self-hosting my own Fediverse instances and many essential services; I even managed to install and set up Ghost and Varnish Cache on a VPS just using command lines.
My current tech stack may not be perfect but it motivates me to improve and to never stop learning.
Because of broligarchs I discovered Linux, the world of FOSS and the Fediverse. My next big challenge will be learning
Docker.
When the next
FOSDEM comes around in early February 2026 I may be a little less intimidated, as I will have over a year of self-hosting under my belt.
I'm doing all this for my 4-year-old and I'm hoping to pass along this knowledge when the time comes.
Thanks for being here,
Elena
Related:
My Web Values: Why I Quit X and Feed the Fediverse InsteadI stopped posting on Twitter, now known as X, in November 2023. X isn’t open, it throttles distribution, and devalues links. Simply put, it doesn’t align with my values as a supporter of the open web.
CyberculturalRichard MacManus
a post by Richard MacManus who inspired me to write this article. He has since stopped using Threads, too
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