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The story
On the German-speaking decentralized social network Lemmy, the community c/dach has a monthly tradition tied to its recurring ‘di.day’: members report on what they’ve done that month to reduce their dependence on Big Tech companies like Google and Amazon. This time, the thread’s original poster revealed they were using the AI coding assistant Claude Code to build a homemade alternative to Duolingo for learning French. That drew a pointed question — ‘Isn’t paying for Claude Code to escape Big Tech kind of a joke?’ — along with a nitpicky aside about whether Anthropic even counts as a ‘Konzern’ (German for a large corporate conglomerate) rather than just a single company. Other participants chimed in with the Google- and cloud-free alternatives they actually use, including Joplin, Anki, the home inventory/budgeting app Grocy, and the VPN service Tailscale.
What people said
Well, since most of us have already switched to Linux, the 'momentum' has died down a bit, but — what did you do this month to get away from Big Tech?
I did something a little contradictory. I signed up for Claude Code and I'm working on building a truly 'personal computer.' Basically, I'm going through the apps and software I use day to day and using Claude Code to build my own local, private replacements. Right now, for example, I'm building a custom French-learning tool for myself, and once it's done I won't need Duolingo anymore.
Which part of 'don't be dogmatic about it, everyone does what they can' didn't you get?
I mean, Anthropic isn't really that much of a 'big company' yet, is it…
@horsesaysweird Way to split hairs… 😁
But your project sounds really cool, show us the results later!
Just tell them you only check WhatsApp once every two weeks or once a month. I have people contact me on Signal for anything important.
Same here. Once people realize the photos of the nephews/nieces and important family-gathering details only get posted in the Signal group, they install it pretty fast. After that it's just a bit of gentle 'soft coercion.'
> Or the controller only gets half-recognized (talking about Binding of Isaac)
Same thing happened to me (on Bazzite too) — drove me half crazy. Turns out the cause was apparently some ancient native Linux build that still exists for it. That controller-mapping voodoo runs way better if you just run the Windows version of the same game through Proton instead. No problems since.
Got it, thanks. I'll give that a try and see if it works.
I've been using it for a few weeks too. The more I use it, the more comfortable it feels. I use it to manage my university coursework, and it's more than good enough for that.
Letting you know about the Joplin app community, for what it's worth.
In case you don't know it yet: Anki.
It's great for vocabulary drilling, but not so much for grammar or conversation. Still, it'll help.
Exactly. There's a huge number of community-made decks too, so you've got plenty to choose from.
I was using AnkiDroid as my client.
I love Joplin! Because of its 'offline, local-first' design, sync conflicts crop up occasionally, but when I travel it's the only thing I use anymore. Itinerary, booking numbers, tickets and confirmation emails, addresses, phone numbers, maps, destinations, schedule, links… I put *everything* into a single Joplin note.
How do you sync your notes? Nextcloud, Joplin Server…? Self-hosted, or do you use a managed service?
> I've got high hopes for Grocy specifically. Not sure I'll actually stick with it long-term, but I'll give it a try for now.
I looked into it too, and it feels like it adds a ton of extra hassle. Do you really have to log it in the system every time you go shopping, and then log it again every time you eat something?
I think the initial setup is pretty tedious, but after that it's not a big deal. Maybe 5 minutes after a shopping trip. In exchange you always know exactly what's in the house, and the recipe suggestions seem decent too.
I did something similar for a few weeks with an app like Fridgy. I only logged what was in the freezer, but being able to check what's in there anytime without having to dig through it was actually pretty nice. The real problem is whether the other people you live with actually bother to log things properly — that only kept working because I kept nagging everyone about it.
I don't get people like that. It's just one more app. Why are they so reluctant to install it?
The 'accountant' in me wants to use Grocy too, if only to track how much my personal grocery costs have gone up, or to catch shrinkflation (quietly shrinking package sizes as a disguised price hike). Haven't managed to sell the rest of the family on it though.
Thanks, I didn't know about ProtonDB.
Tailscale works pretty well for me. The only annoying part is that you can't log in with just an email address.
There is one, but running it needs a graphics card with 16GB or more of VRAM.
As for whether it's even worth using in the first place, I think this video covers it really well:
https://youtu.be/y85nqc2zm7M
Background and key points of this discussion
‘di.day’ is part of a broader ‘digital sovereignty’ movement that has taken root across the German-speaking internet: once a month, people gather to report on steps they’ve taken to cut their reliance on major US tech companies like Google and Amazon, and this has become an established tradition within a corner of the decentralized social network Lemmy. Behind it lies an awareness of EU data protection rules (GDPR) and a general unease about dependence on US-based cloud services — a culture of running home servers and self-hosted tools that’s considerably more entrenched there than in Japan. The thread raised the irony of using the AI coding assistant Claude Code as a tool for ‘escaping Big Tech,’ which spiraled into a nitpicky side debate over whether Anthropic should even be called a giant conglomerate (‘Konzern’) in the first place. Note that part of the thread also contained an unverified claim linking Anthropic’s AI to actual military operations, but since no evidence was provided for it, this article does not cover that claim.
※This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Lemmy c/dach) thread ‘Was ist euer Projekt zum heutigen di.day?‘.
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