Over the past two decades, digital trends have evolved at a rapid pace. A wealth of new services and comforts have emerged, while digital friction has been all but eliminated. However, some troubling trends have developed. Freedoms are being eroded, services are degrading, and users are increasingly treated as products rather than people.
I found myself deeply entangled in proprietary ecosystems like Google Android, Microsoft Windows, and a litany of other apps. I had outsourced so much of my life to these closed ecosystems that no longer truly owned any part of it. Every purchase was a license, not ownership, subject to arbitrary and abrupt Terms of Service (ToS) or End User License Agreements (EULA) alterations.
I had given equally little thought to my security practices. I relied on weak, reused passwords, skipped two‑factor authentication, created countless accounts, downloaded apps without a second thought, and granted permissions without scrutiny.
I needed a change, so I set out to completely reconfigure my digital life from the ground up—modernizing it while staying true to my core values.