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With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial.
(www.bloodinthemachine.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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Technology
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The “backlash” is half hearted and also sensationalised a little in the media.
People have not come together to meaningfully boycott these platforms. Boycott is the language these capitalists understand.
I do not understand why people still use meta platforms, for example. We could level these companies quickly. The excuse that “everyone else I know is there” is wilful paralysis: waiting for someone else to go first. And that’s why these tech oligarchs are confident. They’re probably right to be.
The same reason smokers don’t boycott big tobacco.
This. It's cigarettes, but worse.
I quit all Meta products 3 years ago. Apart from Marketplace every now and then, I don't miss anything from their plarform, anything at all. I have also quit Google completely (even google play which I replaced with Aurora and F-Droid.). That has been OK as well (I moved most of my common apps to their web based equivalent). Every time i have a chance to mention it to folks around, without being the wise ass out there, I do it. People are just ignorant about the alternatives, this message comes across slowly, one chap at a time..
Dudes relapsing on marketplace
Don't hate. It's the only real location for Buy Nothing groups too.
That's unfortunate
It's no coincidence that capitalism comes along with an emphasis on individualism and "expressing yourself" through consumption. It's designed to train people out of collective thinking (class consciousness) and collective action, and it has been very effective.
For the most part, there's nothing to boycott yet. Showing up to council meetings by the dozens, imploring them to say No to the data centers they've already been bribed to accept, is the same action, done preemptively. Boycotts come later, when the data centers are actually open.
I'm aware that some are already operational, but they are a fraction of what these predators want to build.
Right now, the move is to let them know that we don't want this, and there will be consequences for supporting data centers. Then vote them out in the next election, and make it very vocal why.
And in small towns and counties, where the council members also operate businesses, those businesses need to be boycotted. You don't get to inflict existential damage on this town and it's citizens, without feeling retribution for it. I hope your bribe was fat enough to sustain you after your business crashes, because that's the choice you made.
It's because these products work. They actually provide value to the users, despite opponents' insistence to the contrary.
And here I've tried generative LLMs about once a year and every time I go "what the fuck are people smoking to think this is good".
I think everyone insisting all this stuff is providing value are legitimately idiots who haven't spent even a half second thinking for themselves or about the future or the quality of their work.
I wish I was more dumb and saw these products working like you insist and didn't have to spend half my time rejecting AI slop PRs that genuinely don't address anything.
That's the worst fucking part. You can't fix stupid, and they've just learned how to weaponize stupid.
The amount of effort it requires to create a useable work flow built around a genAI llm as the core instead of just a tool in the work flow is absurd.
It basically takes three times the effort to get good results out of it when compared to doing it the old fashion way.
And both require you to still actually understand art to actually produce good results. You can't just tell an ai to shit out a picture and have it be good. No more then you can tell an artist to just shit out a picture and have it be good.
Both require you to actually put effort in, go though the process and make mistakes fix them. Go back and forth and test ideas.
And that's the fundamental problem. GenAI is only good enough to at best do the equivalent of a rushed first draft with flat colors. It's "good enough" not actually good.
And the sort of people using genai arnt the sort of people who are going to go back and edit or clean up the picture. To test and try different things. Hell they aren't even going to be the sort that custom tunes their model to actually produce what they want.
They just take what ever generic shit model they can find and run with it.
The difference between a generic model and custom trained one is night and day after all. But again the fucking idiots using gen AI ain't gonna bother to do that let alone know how.
Prompt jockeys are the least qualified people to use genAI. It's comical.
"old fashion way." * old fashioned.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that they do bring value. If all you need is a car, any car, would you buy a "used, in great condition, original owner selling" F-15 that comes with a subscription to use the flaps and work the landing gear?
Your comment is complete and utter bullshit.
Do the services work? Most of them do what is expected, yes. But to have them sqeezing me at every point, and looking as far up my ass as the camera will go to use something that works is just fucking moronic.
I mean, people like you insist on this, but I can't evaluate the truthfulness of that claim since I haven't used a Meta product since Facebook in like 2009 lol.
But sure man, glad the mega company is really working out for you!
Depends on the definition of "work". There's plenty of people I had on Facebook that I no longer talk to because I don't use Facebook. To be clear, my Facebook still exists. It's there to face tank all the family photos my MIL shares. That's the only reason the account still exists at all.
That's technically working for me.
But lots of people are just addicted and Facebook or insta or messenger scratches an itch for them.
They provide value for some, but so far most people use the free version and monetizing the thing by moving users to paid subscriptions fails miserably. Professional users also question the value compared to price hikes they're seeing.