Comment by jackothy

First, saying "I would" does not mean I 100% always do. But I absolutely am willing to avoid annoying infuriating companies and products out of principle.

My computer is Linux and most software fully open-source. None of it is user hostile on purpose. I put all the pieces together myself, and if anything is missing I have all the power to change it. For LLM/AI access specifically I am planning to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to efficiently self-host some of the more open ones.

For everything else it's very much a "least bad choice" type deal since you don't have control as a user. Though, it still makes me feel a bit better every time I pay extra for a product that has one less bad feature than the competition. I'm talking about planned obsolescence, user lock-in, "smart" features, and other stuff I try to purposefully avoid.