Surprise and shine

What if I told you there was a product that would make all of your life much worse, but me a lot richer?

That's roughly how I feel watching this summer's endless string of keynotes and Google I/O style events roll by, through one heatwave after another. The Google Pixel 11 is out. The iPhone 18 is coming. So what?

Is this the kind of technology that's going to shrink humanity's footprint on the living world? Cut our carbon impact? Stop the paving-over of land? Reduce the space given to the private car? No, not at all. What we're being offered is a few more megapixels on the camera, a bit more AI bolted on. Which means a more powerful chip, more RAM. The denial just keeps going. For how much longer?

Because here's the worst part: these devices don't even make us happier with each new release. If anything, it's getting worse. Honestly, I have zero interest left in following this kind of tech news, even though I was a techno-enthusiast from my teenage years, and an Apple fanboy from 2006 onward. Until recently I kept following it, out of curiosity, out of fascination. Now it just disgusts me.

On Alternatives numériques, the french alternumériste outlet I've decided to fully relaunch this year, I want to shine a light on "a different kind of digital." Not the kind that ships a new product every year to fill shareholders' pockets. A digital technology that's genuinely useful and emancipatory, one that seriously reckons with planetary limits, one that also rethinks the entrepreneurial and capitalist model (looking at you, cooperatives!). Plenty of articles are already waiting for you on the site.

Stay tuned for what's next. And in the meantime, don't cave and buy the new iPhone or the new Pixel. Be alternuméristes: get a Fairphone running /e/OS, or a refurbished Pixel running GrapheneOS. Even better, rent one from Commown!