We need to own our computing experience

Blogger Andre Garzia is advocating for users to take full ownership of their computing experience by moving away from big tech platforms like Apple and Google. Garzia has already purchased an MNT Pocket Reform laptop and is self-hosting services on a converted MacBook Pro server, while planning to test deGoogled Android on a second-hand phone before committing to a Fairphone. The push reflects growing frustration with corporate control over devices and software, as Garzia argues for a return to human-focused, open-source computing.

We need to own our computing experience Originally when I talked about owning our own platform is this blog, I meant owning the stack that powers and serves the blog. Moving to your own VPS or servers or static pages in which you didn’t depend on some Blog As A Service company such as Wordpress.com. Eventually, I started talking about owning the workflow that empowered your blog experience https://andregarzia.com/2026/02/building-your-own-blogging-tools-is-a-fun-journey.html not only your posting experience but your reading experience. To that effect, I showed how I created my own blog reader and integrated that into Firefox and also my own blog editor. Recently, I think that we need to move further into owning more and more of our computing experience. The avalanche of LLM/AI based slop solutions being force fed into our lives is radicalising me towards a very specific path in which owning my own platform now needs to mean controlling my own computing experience. I been an Apple user for a very long time and have spoken previously about my recent desire to leave the platform https://andregarzia.com/2026/03/apple-just-lost-me.html because of a recent decrease in quality of macOS, change in priority for Apple in regards to being an independent developer in their ecosystem, and a general feeling that I must move away from big tech. In that post, I outlined my desire to move to an MNT Pocket Reform https://mntre.com , Fairphone Gen 6 with potentially Murena /e/OS https://fairphone.com and maybe a NAS. I already purchased the Pocket Reform and am waiting for assembly and shipment, but I changed my approach for the next two items in that list. Instead of buying a NAS, I decided first to experiment with self-hosting and homelabbing by converting an old x86 MacBook Pro into a server using Yunohost https://yunohost.org . That server is going surprisingly well for me and I am moving more and more of my computing to inside the house. I will eventually get a proper NAS or build one, but at the moment that server is all I need. I am even hosting my fediverse account https://social.soapdog.org/@soapdog in it using GoToSocial https://gotosocial.org . I reckon that I will spend close to 500 pounds to get the Fairphone with /e/OS. I don’t have that budget right now and am afraid of doing it blind cause I been checking the forums and it seems like WhatsApp stopped working in the last update and not all features of Halifax UK bank app are working. I don’t want a switch to a deGoogled OS to prevent me from talking to my friends or using my bank. I know that sucks, but those are not easily solvable problems. Like my original plan with the NAS, I think I might be able to test the waters of e/OS/ by buying an old second-hand smartphone and installing it and seeing for myself how well it works. That will cost me much less and then if I like it enough, I can make the move to a Fairphone. So now the issue is figuring out what phone to buy on a budget of 150 pounds or less. Moving back to Linux on open hardware and to Android but deGoogled is my slow journey towards computing autonomy. Google was never worth trust, but the recent move to prevent side-loading on Android and stop showing links on their search result page, becoming a de facto slop as service engine, is something I can’t really abide. Apple hypermaniacal need to control the experience of their users and milk both developers and users as much as possible reached a tiping point for me. My Macbook Air doesn’t feel like mine since there are piling frictions when trying to run software that is not coming from the App Store. I’m done with that. What is left then? We need to return to a human-focused FOSS community. Not the fast turnaround LLM/AI commits into every single repo cause whoever is sponsoring this project needs it to move FAST. The best thing about the free and open source community has never been the code, but the ethos. Made by humans, to be understandable by humans, to be modifiable by humans. This crazy trend towards LLM assisted coding is removing the understandable part. Lots of commits are being generated by machine and reviewed by machines without a single person actually having read the whole thing. That will erode skills and also lead to code that is impossible to maintain cause no one has ever fully understood it. Hence why I am starting to also build my own tools. There are of course tools I depend on that are too large for me to build from scratch, goddess forbid trying to build a web browser, in those cases it is okay to use a FOSS solution like Firefox. But things that are dear to me like blogging, well I can build my own tools for that. Or epub manipulation tools, or small decentralisation apps. The more I build, the more I can be sure I can maintain it in the long run. I don’t want a Web where all we do as creators is feed training models so that gigantic greedy corporations can get it all wrong and regurgitate shit to users. FAANG erected a wall inside the internet and creators are now on the outside. Fighting back is not done by creating local models, or ethical AI companies, fighting back is done by walking away and playing a different game. We can’t win over Google and Apple at their own game. It is rigged. But we can play a different game in which they don’t matter. For me that game is building offline-first, local-first, decentralised tools and apps for my friends and whoever else can benefit from them. Create for those around you, for those that matter. Forget web scale, think in terms of a village. Get back to Linux, deGoogle yourself if you’re able to. Create FOSS and also use the tools you create. Use repairable tech if you can afford it and make sure to step out of this consumption and slop cycle the digital world has become.