@CiaraNi Oh yes, it can.

https://michael.kjorling.se/blog/2025/quit-saying-individual-choices-meaningless/

@Flatus I'm not @CiaraNi but I can say about backups from my own perspective: by having copies! Keeping things solely in the cloud is definitely not a backup!

Once you have stuff somewhere you have full control, backing up is "just" copying the right files to elsewhere.

(If you're curious how *I* personally am handling backups, I wrote a blog post at https://michael.kjorling.se/blog/2024/my-data-backup-setup/ about two years ago. It's not completely up to date, but nothing major has changed since.)

@andresimous @sebastian

@CiaraNi There are so many people who take either an absolutist (must do everything at once and everything must be perfect) or a defaitist (nothing one does matters at all) approach.

My opinion is quite simply: *every step you take toward better leaves you in a better position!*

Just looking at the steps you have already taken (and committed to), you're probably *already* in a better position than a *huge* number of people. Don't dismiss the progress you've already made.

@andresimous @CiaraNi As I recall (haven't double-checked this time around), Jottacloud requires that you use their software; they don't make a standards-based API (like WebDAV, SFTP, S3, or something similar) available. That makes their offer a no sale at least for me.

Moving from one vendor that locks your data in to another vendor that locks your data in is not really an upgrade IMO. Especially when there are so many vendors who will happily sell something standardized.

@sebastian @Flatus

@CiaraNi Getting *something* done is absolutely a lot better than doing nothing.

If you want cloud storage for one copy (*don't* make that your only copy! always have at least one completely separate backup; and since you have that backup drive, you're practically all the way there already), there are several European providers that will sell you either bare storage space or something like a managed Nextcloud instance (where you can also store arbitrary files).

@sebastian @Flatus

Ditto not self-censoring in order to not make "the algorithm" downrank their posts.

There are many aspects of the Fedi culture that I really like (and some about how some people behave that rubs me rather the wrong way), and/but many of those are also exactly ones that people have been trained for decades by commercial asocial media to *not* do. Unlearning those habits isn't something that just happens.

@joannaholman @0xabad1dea @GossiTheDog

@Purple @kitcat To say nothing of when you've faced a problem, figured out a fix, and can *actually explain why that fix is correct*, and *apply the same reasoning in other situations*. Not just the same fix, but the same *reasoning*.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned like that, but actually having figured something out brings me joy. Even if it is stuff that lots of other people know. Learning how the pieces fit together to bring the result I get out of the thing I made.

@firefoxwebdevs I realize that there's a lot of very vocal people about this, and you might note that I specifically say "whatever the default state is". *At least put the user in a position of being able to easily control these features* and turn them on or off per their preference. For some people, some of those features can be genuinely useful (as illustrated by some replies in this very thread, even). Not *having* to throw the baby out with the bathwater is advantageous.

2/2

@firefoxwebdevs I think the best might be to generalize the "yes, but" answer.

Have a set of toggles, one for each feature. Whatever the default state is:

When I (the user) press the TURN OFF AI button or whatever the mechanics are, force them all to (as actively selected) OFF and make the default for any newly added such features also OFF (by implication of the default).

Let me manually toggle a given, specific feature back ON if I want to, *while* keeping the rest including default OFF.

½