I recently switched database solution for my hobby project from Microsoft Azure to Scaleway. I did this purely out of ideological conviction and I was even prepared to pay a bit more for a European service.

That turned out to not be the case. My monthly bill went from around 6€ to 1,3€. The performance was equally as good, if not better (I haven’t tested, just going off of feel) and the setup was very smooth.

This really made me think, and I began to reflect on all the other changes I’ve made and how they’ve turned out to be improvements - even though that wasn’t what motivated me to switch.

My old laptop was very slow and laggy. I wiped it clean from Windows and installed Linux Mint. Now it’s like it’s brand new, I’ve come to rely on shortcuts and features that don’t exist in Windows and I love how all the unnecessary resource draining bloat is gone.

My search engine, Startpage, gives me what I’m looking for, not AI summaries where my question was misunderstood or just straight up hallucinations.

And for all of the services where the European alternative wasn’t noticeably better (Proton mail, Le Chat, DeepL, etc) they’ve been just as good - only more privacy respecting. I haven’t replaced everything yet, and I expect some things to be difficult, but thus far I can honestly say that I don’t feel like I have made any sacrifices.

I feel like I’ve been subject to some psychological fallacy where I’ve assumed that the most popular alternative is the best and it’s been eye-opening to realize it’s simply not true.

I’m curious about your experiences, can you relate to this?

  • UnknowableNight@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    23 hours ago

    My general philosophy is that if I see it advertised, be very skeptical. That’s why I will never trust any vpn sponsorships, or deletme or incogni or anything, because they’ve been advertised a lot. Gotta be suspicious of everything.