Derek Beyer wrote recently an article on his blog titled How I disconnected from tech in 2025. It does a good job laying out how you should think about disconnecting from tech and giving solid suggestions for how to deal with specific devices and services.

You should read the whole thing.

In particular, I resonated with "Learn to love (or at least accept) inconvenience". Honestly, I believe the convenience of the modern world and tech in particular is the main thing keeping people tethered to the big tech platforms. It feels abstract to think about how Google Drive is or might be using the contents of your files and documents to advertise to you and distort your digital world to suit them.

It's a lot less abstract to deal with the friction of "that file is only on my home computer" or "that stupid open source sync service I set up is so hard to use and is broken half the time". I'm more apt to deal with this than most, and I still find it easier to just shut up and drink the kool-aid sometimes. This blog is partly my attempt to keep myself honest, and I'm glad to learn about others who are making the same sort of changes I am.