# Anti-Consumption: Part 2
It's been a long month. Last month, I wrote about a movement to boycott the big tech companies and "opt out" of the economy on February 28th.
I did that. The day before, I bought all my groceries ahead of time and then the day of, I cooked all my meals, cancelled my subscriptions, and then hung out and played Magic with my friends. The joy and beauty of this action was that I didn't have to disrupt my life to stick the middle finger to the oligarchs. I could simply be more conscious of the choices I made and how I spent my money.
# Anti-Consumption Lifestyle Changes
I have to say, I was pretty excited by this whole notion. It feels good to spend money, knowing it's going to a good cause and not just having it slip through your fingers to the monopoly on convenience.
Since February 28th, I haven't purchased anything from Amazon and honestly, it hasn't been as big of an inconvenience as I thought. First of all, since I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription, I think I've been buying less things online. I still bought the usually things I would have purchased, I just bought them directly from retailers. For example, I bought my favorite hot sauce on sale from heathotsauce.com (opens new window); I purchased more of my classic white t-shirts from strongsize.com (opens new window).
Let's be real, the 2-day delivery guarantee— the convenience that you are paying for, is the only thing that is lost from ditching Amazon. After I wrote my last article, my sister in-law let me know that her and my brother have not been using Amazon for almost 2 years now.
Part of the reason for doing this is to direct your money to supporting local businesses instead. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and how, what I like to call, being a "responsible consumer" has changed my life. I'm going to go over the three main areas that I considered being a responsible consumer in: social media, grocery stores, and technology that I use.
# Social Media
# Bluesky
I liked Twitter. I guess you could say I enjoy micro-blogging and reading other peoples micro-blog posts.
X is... not really Twitter anymore. There has been a growing sentiment of people who feel that the platform has been overrun by bots, but not only that, but by far right extremists as well. While I'm generally against forms of censorship, the following comic (I found floating around on Blusky when I first joined) explains pretty well the dynamic that occurs with platforms without enforcement of community guidelines.
Either way, I switched over to Bluesky because of the vibes and to stop directly supporting Elon Musk. What I've found on Bluesky is that it feels very much like early Twitter (at least what I remember from my rose-tinted glasses). Is it left-leaning? Yes, absolutely. I think many people motivated to leave X for a new platform are going to be left-leaning, and honestly: I prefer it to a right-leaning platform.
Politics, aside, the real reason why I switched to Bluesky is because the technology is so much better! Let me tell you about all the cool features of Bluesky.
# AT Protocol
Bluesky is built on the AT Protocol (opens new window). The AT Protocol is a protocol and open standard for distributed social networking services. The protocol was created as an independent research group within Twitter to investigate the possibility of decentralizing the service. Note, this does not mean it's built on the blockchain! The really cool thing about this is the moderation is decentralized, allowing different levels of moderation by communities.
The details on this are very interesting and it actually solves the problem outlined in the comic above! Basically, the protocol allows for different parties (platforms, third-party moderators, or users) to apply labels to content, accounts, or posts. Users and services can then choose which labels to follow, tailoring their content experience.
As far as design is concerned, rather than having a monolithic database hosting the user data and application, the AT Protocol splits up these elements into smaller microservices which can be used as needed. It's designed as an open protocol, encouraging third-party innovation by allowing developers to build apps on the protocol.
The two pieces of tech I really like are that your username is your domain name. You get one for free from bsky.app (opens new window) or you can register your own. I registered mine using rockzombie2.gg (opens new window).
The second piece of tech I really like is that no longer are you beholden to The Algorithm! Instead, you can subscribe to different Feeds which tailor your timeline.
If you're interested further, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article (opens new window) or do what I did and ask ChatGPT to summarize the benefits of the protocol.
Follow me on Bluesky! @rockzombie2.gg (opens new window)
# Flashes
Although I left Facebook many years ago, I still kept Instagram, mostly because I found there was no good alternative for it. I realized this still tethered me to Mark Zuckerberg, but it was something I chose to live with as I still had many friends who use the platform.
Flashes is a nice app which serves as an Instagram clone but built on the AT Protocol! Pretty neat, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, Flashes is only available for iPhones currently. The creator has started a GoFundMe campaign (opens new window) in order to bring Flashes to Android, which I've contributed to. I think it'll come out eventually anyway, but this helps fund development and "if all goes well", a full Android version should come out in 2 months.
# Grocery Stores
# Publix
I liked shopping at Publix. It was local, the BOGO deals were fire and the Pub Sub (opens new window) hype was real.
Then I saw this response on Bluesky:
They donate loads of money to right wing corporations that love holding down minorities, taking away the freedom of women to choose, and they love Hitler Trump. Fuck Publix.
— Jeff Schwartz (@jeffschwartz.bsky.social) March 4, 2025 at 10:50 PM
I was surprised. So I looked into it. And sure enough, Publix's (opens new window) recent political leanings favor conservative causes.
According to the Miami New Times, Publix's recent political leanings favor conservative causes, such as opposing the legalization of medical marijuana and the regulation of polystyrene, better known by the brand name Styrofoam. Publix also contributes to the PAC supporting Ron DeSantis, who some conservatives argue is a business-friendly governor.
Not the worst. But then I found out about this bitch:
Julie Jenkins Fancelli (opens new window) (born 1949 or 1950) is an American heiress and conservative political donor. She is an heiress to the Publix supermarkets fortune and a member of America's thirty-ninth richest family. Fancelli's organizational efforts and donations played a decisive role in the January 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally at The Ellipse that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Yikes. And I couldn't stomach seeing my money go towards someone who ultimately will fund shit like this. So I stopped shopping at Publix. I still use it as my pharmacy and I get certain paper and plastic products from it. But shopping there had no longer become a pleasure.
Not to fear, because this opened my eyes to the plenty of other wholesome options that are near by me.
# The Fresh Market
The Fresh Market! Being the next closest grocery store to my house. This one checks out. No obvious atrocities committed. And it even was named the "Best Grocery Store in America" from 2021 to 2023 by USA Today. Not bad!
The only reason why I don't shop here regularly is because the specific location near me has lower than average reviews which I'm sure has something to do with the rather small parking lot that is often full. I do like that they sell Tony's Chocolonelys (opens new window) there.
# Trader Joe's
I used to shop at Trader Joe's in college. It was very expensive, I'll say that.
Recently, however, there is a Trader Joe's further down the road from The Fresh Market near my house. I've been there once. It's kind of hard to shop there when I drive past a grocery store to get there.
Besides that, I read the Wikipedia article (opens new window) for Trader Joe's and learned some interesting things. Trader Joe's has been accused of union busting in numerous cases. Trader Joe's has also been accused of contributing to gentrification. I guess they mostly build locations mostly in well-off neighborhoods.
But they also have sustainability initiatives like committing to all their eggs being cage-free by 2025 and improving packaging to be more environmentally friendly.
Ultimately, I think shopping here is alright, if not inconvenient.
# Sprouts Farmers Market
Finally, the farmers market I've been wanting to talk about!
This place is great. It started out as a fresh-fruit stand in San Diego, California which grew into a handful of open-air farmers markets. Eventually, they came together with a bunch of stores and rebranded to Sprouts. The company has donated millions in charitable giving since then.
What I love most about this grocery store is their commitment to "zero waste".
Sprouts participates in a food waste diversion program that provides food to those in need, feed for animals, and nutrients for agricultural soil. All edible food that is no longer fit for sale is donated to hunger-relief agencies, and food that is not fit for them is donated as cattle feed. Everything else is donated as compost.
Since shopping there, I discovered "organic" milk, which has a shelf life of two months! That's way longer than the two weeks* I'd been getting with regular milk.
# Technology
# Plex
As part of February 28th, I cancelled all my streaming services.
Even CrunchyRoll.
But, nothing was lost as I was still able to watch plenty of new media using Plex (opens new window)! Plex is a media streaming service. So basically I download the movie or TV show ahead of time and the Plex server I have running as a Docker instance on my computer serves it up to the web for me to stream from the TVs in my home.
Yeah, it's as good as it sounds.
# Proton
One of the big tech companies I actually like is Google. Google has been with me through my ups and downs of my life. They've been a rock during the manic episodes of my life.
But they are a monopoly. And I realized how dependent I was to Google and the power they have over my life, actually.
So I tried to decouple myself from Google services, if only to not have such a dependency on American based companies (something Bluesky has taught me to do). That is how I discovered Proton.
Proton (opens new window) is a Swiss based company and as such, are beholden to Swiss privacy laws. They own a suite of software services that can help replace Google services. To start out, I set up a new Proton Mail account, using my spacepirates.net (opens new window) domain. You can now reach me at christofer@spacepirates.net. Of course, I forwarded all my mail, for now. I'm slowly replacing my old email with my new one on accounts I have, but it'll be a long process migrating over.
I encourage you to check out their other services they offer, like Calendar (opens new window) and Drive (opens new window). I think I plan to migrate over to their password manager at some point as well.
# Obsidian
Funny enough, one of the Google apps I used the most was Google Keep. I used it as my note taking app but more importantly I kept my grocery shopping list there. As I was starting to go grocery shopping more often now, I needed to find a solution to this quickly.
Enter Obsidian (opens new window).
This note taking app is great. The thing for this app is you take your notes in markdown format and then you can sync your vault (folder) across the web. Then, you can also display a graph showing all the interconnectedness of your notes, assuming you properly tag and link your other articles.
That's a nice feature, but this app fits perfectly for my needs because I already keep my notes in markdown format on my desktop. So I subscribed to Obsidian Sync (opens new window) to sync my notes to the phone app. The neat thing about this is since you're just dealing with markdown files, you don't need to pay to sync your notes; you can set up your own method for synchronizing these files. For example, I just set up my Rasberry Pi again and I could set up a service to sync the files.
But I just bought Obsidian Sync because it was easier. (And it supports the devs!)
# GrapheneOS
Finally. The final boss of Anti-Consumerism: De-Googling your Android phone.
Luckily, there is a wonderful Android Open Source Project (opens new window) which provides a familiar base for open android projects to begin with.
One of these open android projects is GrapheneOS (opens new window).
I was really hyped to try this out. And I did! Installation was a breeze and I suddenly had a bunch of extra security features.
I found this video which explained how to set up your account with multiple users. Ideally, you leave the Owner (default user) as the "root" user for installing apps, and then you have your secondary user you install the apps to. It's very secure and sandboxed, even if you don't jump through all the hoops he does to install apps outside of the Play store.
It worked great, honestly. The one thing that I had troubles with were MMS messages. I think it had something to do with setting up Google Fi on my phone, but my secondary profile was not able to send or receive MMS messages. Time after time of searching for a solution to this, I was reminded that SMS/MMS messages are insecure and you should use a more secure alternative like the Signal (opens new window) app (which I use).
Ultimately, I failed to convince my friends to download Signal for our group chat and I needed to text my landlord a picture, so I switched back to stock Android. I couldn't figure out my issue, much as I tried.
But otherwise, I would highly recommend GraphenOS as an alternative.
# Conclusion
If you've read this far, thank you. I really do put a lot of effort into my posts. This one was mostly about my experiences with being a responsible consumer, but I hope it offers some insight into those looking to make similar changes in their own lifestyle.
I have to say, by the end of the month, my grocery bill went from $325 to $536, but my dining out went from $1157 to $453 (shout out to YNAB (opens new window)). I ate out a lot February, but I also cooked a lot more in March. I was inspired by my lifestyle changes to eat out less. This is just one data point, so I'll be sure to keep an eye on these numbers over the next few months.
I also feel much happier, more satisfied, and more fulfilled in my daily life. I don't want to attribute all of this to the changes I've been making, but I'm sure it helps I've eliminated one potential source of cognitive dissonance.