BoycottUnitedStates

The homespun movement was started in 1767 by Quakers in Boston, Massachusetts, to encourage the purchase of goods, especially apparel, manufactured in the American Colonies. The movement was created in response to the British Townshend Acts of 1767 and 1768, in the early stages of the American Revolution.

-- https://www.timesmojo.com/what-was-the-homespun-movement-in-india/

Its amazing that in the 1700s people realized they could resist oppression by introducing more self reliance and community solidarity, but today, making things that we all need without corporate middlemen seems impossible.

Maybe it's time we consider what the true cost of the goods we consume are, and how we can collectively make a difference.

Yeah, just looking at the tech side of this, I suppose that you could get a Linux phone from some start up company and be completely disconnected from all the services everyone else uses, but in terms of price and availability, that's for hipsters and enthusiasts, not the average Joe on a working class wage.

Until someone is able to mass produce basic Linux touchscreen phones with something comparable to WhatsApp and all the other social apps and shit, nothing is going to take down Google Android. And having a pricey, concept Linux phone will always be a hobbyist thing because everyone else is using a different messenger app.

The problem is that all of these companies own the market on the cheap crap that their wage slaves can afford. Buying local or going out of your way to support the smaller companies is fucking expensive.

I don't know what will change things now short of a total revolution.

Do you wanna invent an arc reactor?

Because that is how you invent an arc reactor!

Sounds like you are catching on to their plan.

Please elaborate why.

Isn't that what pretty much everyone was doing already?

Have you not been doing that? If you want to have the largest impact, go after the big money. Stop using US tech, switch to open source.

Oh man, the Wonklevoss twins are out there investing in basically everything that is making the internet shitty today. Do not discredit them. They're just as much a part of the problem

Yeah these guys turned their small Facebook fortune into a major crypto fortune. I'm certain their benefiting heavily by the current crypto-friendly government.

They own one of the largest crypto exchanges, Gemini. Naturally they had to match Coinbase.

Peter Thiel from palantir is on the Epstein list

LMAO! I just took mine in for the same issue! Glad I gave my money to the repair guy instead of the shitty trump lapdogs. Said I was cuttin it close and that it'd nearly cracked the palmrest near the power button, but he managed to salvage it with a few used parts!

Depends on the products or services it's providing

Interesting. If you would, please add this in comments to my reorganized list here...

https://lemmy.world/comment/20138343

Best thing to do is just choose an MVNO or prepaid that uses one of the other networks. That's the problem with boycotts in an oligopoly of something "needed" - one can't easily full-boycott.

Choosing something that costs you $25/mon versus a $110/mon post-paid plan hits them in their ARPU (average revenue per user) which is a metric carriers heavily try to keep looking good to make shareholders happy.

Only caveats, is MVNOs often do not have domestic roaming, nor access to accessory products you might need for service. Carrier prepaid often does, although sometimes it is a bit less. They also tend to have less priority, and some will plug their QCI level as being on par with a carrier plan (which is a network priority tier at the radio level) but they can and do still get traffic-shaped below primary carrier/post-paid/business/responder traffic.

Domestic roaming is not such a big concern in most developed areas of the country these days, but some places like the Intermountain West do still have a lot of off-carrier roaming where your phone will just stop working when you are domestic roaming.

Some sources from that "other" social site to compare:

https://prepaidcompare.net/

https://www.bestphoneplans.net/

Also, while AT&T and Verizon have storied histories for various reasons, they at least haven't used mango 1.0 and mango 2.0 to manipulate their position in the market like T-Mobile did. They're greedy shits and do terrible things themselves, but somehow the mostly German- and partly Japanese-owned (not a bias against those two nations, just pointing out the odd hypocrisy, looking down upon us while profiting from our wallets) T-Mobile is capitalizing on manipulating our markets, regs, and laws to give themselves a leg up above the other two.

FWIW, AT&T has the most square miles of coverage in the US, but it tends to be razor thin in rural areas. AT&T has been very sluggish on upgrading their network, in many markets they broadcast the 5G network flag so your phone says 5G, but they run on old LTE equipment, or run a tiny 5G carrier on ancient hardware on their old 850MHz band to claim it is "real". They always tend to work for basic voice and text, and some data just about anywhere. Verizon hasn't ever back-filled their CDMA holes across the US after their 2023 CDMA shutdown, and actually roam on AT&T in places where their gaps are huge. They have done a great job of updating their network in populated or even semi-populated areas, on par with or surpassing T-Mobile. They also didn't buy spectrum for 12 years, so they have a huge spectrum gap compared to the other two, so if you're in a busy traffic market, you may have a poor experience.

Wireless in the US is stupid, for so many reasons.

Walmart. I already arranged that. They want login info?

User Email: irrelevant@dispostable.com

Password: Walmart1

Fuckem, last I checked, that still works for Walmart.

It's registered to the name Anonymous Human.

It's about harm reduction...

Verizon: Donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration

AT&T: Donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration

T-Mobile: Donated millions to Trump's ballroom, agreed to run the network for Trump Mobile, partnered with and promoted Musk's Starlink, ended DEI to bend the knee to Trump

I know who I'm not choosing.

They suck his [redacted], obviously...

They are busy moving money between themselves