A blog post by Lukas Mathis has been sitting open in my browser tab for almost two weeks now. Every time I see it, it reinforces something I’ve believed for years: our growing dependence on big tech services comes with hidden costs that many of us don’t fully consider. Lukas’s post strikes a chord with me on multiple levels, and I think it’s worth exploring why digital independence matters more than ever.

The most obvious concern is privacy. When you upload your photos to Google Photos, your documents to Google Drive, or your files to any cloud service, you’re essentially handing over control of your personal data. Sure, these companies have privacy policies, but those policies can change. And even with the best intentions, your data becomes subject to their business models, government requests, and potential security breaches. Lukas uses photos as his primary example, but the issue extends far beyond image storage. Your emails, documents, notes, contacts, calendars—essentially your entire digital life—can end up in the hands of companies whose primary allegiance is to their shareholders, not to you.

The second issue that resonates with me is dependency. Cloud services can disappear overnight. Companies can change their terms of service, increase prices dramatically, or simply decide you’re no longer welcome on their platform—all without meaningful recourse for users. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly. Google alone has a graveyard of discontinued services that once hosted people’s important data. When you’re dependent on a single provider, you’re essentially betting your digital life on their continued goodwill and business success.

This is why I’ve made deliberate choices to maintain my digital independence, even when it means sacrificing some convenience.

I gravitate toward Apple’s ecosystem not just for the user experience, but because their business model doesn’t depend on harvesting my personal data. I also deliberately limit my social media usage—partly for mental health reasons, but also to reduce my digital footprint. For photos, I’ve skipped iCloud Photos entirely. Instead, I store my photo library on a local NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, which I then back up to the cloud using strong encryption. This gives me the best of both worlds: local control over my data with the safety net of remote backup.

One of my longest-running projects has been hosting my own email server—something I started doing over 20 years ago. Back then, it meant manually compiling and configuring everything from scratch, spending countless hours debugging mail server configurations and fighting spam filters. Today, I use Mail-in-a-Box, which has transformed email self-hosting from a masochistic technical exercise into something remarkably straightforward. The software handles all the complex configuration automatically while still giving me complete control over my email infrastructure.

The beauty of this approach extends beyond just privacy. Because I control the entire stack, I can host it with any VPS provider I choose. If I’m unhappy with my current host’s service, pricing, or policies, I can simply spin up a new server elsewhere and restore from backup. This portability is freedom in the truest sense.

If you’re interested in taking back control of your digital life, you’re not alone. The self-hosting community has grown tremendously, and the barrier to entry has never been lower. Lukas mentions the awesome-selfhosted GitHub repository, which is an incredible resource. This curated list contains hundreds of open-source applications that can replace virtually any cloud service you’re currently using. Whether you need file storage, media streaming, password management, or collaborative tools, there’s likely a self-hosted solution available.

I won’t pretend that digital independence comes without costs. Self-hosting requires time, some technical knowledge, and ongoing maintenance. You become responsible for updates, security, and troubleshooting. The convenience of “it just works” that comes with major cloud services is genuinely valuable. But for me, the trade-offs are worth it. The peace of mind that comes from knowing I control my data, that I’m not subject to arbitrary policy changes, and that I can switch providers without losing years of digital history—that’s invaluable.

Twenty years ago the first official release of Mac OSX became available: News article. I still remember my own personal switch to OSX. Till then I was still using Windows for day to day computing and Linux and Solaris for tinkering. OSX brought the best of those two worlds together for me, easy day to day computing with usable software in a nice GUI and all the Unix I could handle. It became just a matter of time before I would switch.

My first encounter with Apple was at work with a classic, the original Macintosh, it was the computer which everyone used to make drawings which could be imported in Wordperfect om an MS-DOS PC (this was the pre Windows era). My parents have always used a Mac, from the first Performa, the colorful translucent iMac, then every iteration of iMac design that followed to which now seems to end for them in an iPad.

My first Mac was the first Mac mini that was released with the G4 PowerPC with a second one quickly after that. The first intel version I got was a year later. In that period I was very busy with getting my mail server configuration working (see switch.richard5.net and diymacserver.com for more information)