Speaking about degrowth and transition, does not mean that we must make tabula rasa of all that surrounds us. The tools that surround us often diserve us because we don’t know how to use them, to make them or we do not give ourselves the time to look for an alternative. The technological society that grows is making us used to receive everything in hand and to the monopolies that surround us.
Without being an IT expert, which I am not, we can make a change in our computer usage habits. Businesses on the internet have launched the principle of: If it’s free you are the product. For ease and habit we accept this operation.
There are however many solutions to what we use, no more complicated or less efficient, just less known because the marketing does not sell them. Free software is free and royalty free software that is built by a community. They are collectives projects on the internet, like the version 2.0 of the collective garden if I can say so.
It is important to learn how to use them, because making your garden, not using plastic, is only a drop if our technophile habits continue to fill the hard drive of datas centers. This is the point which is the most contradictory in our actions, because of the system, the step aside is difficult.
It can be evenings of discussions on the subject, initiation to their use or courses on how to use these software, whether for personal needs or for an association there is a multitude of software that we could adopt and so value projects that fit our values.
Hosting a website, multimedia software, office automation, project management, calls, collaborative work, etc. Free software is a solution to technological capitalism and its environmental misdeeds, knowing them and using them will make our technological use a citizen act.