I got someone to use Signal recently, because I don’t text outside of it. Last week, she asked me why that is. I sent this Bruce Schneier essay on the eternal value of privacy to someone who knows absolutely nothing about tech, and she understood.

I’m gonna try it again next time it comes up with someone else. I think this essay does a really good job of putting it into perspective, so I’m hoping this is the silver bullet I can continue to send when someone asks.

Overall, in general, I try to keep it in real world terms. Why do you close the door when you go to the bathroom? Why do you lock your doors? Why do you have curtains/blinds? etc., along with what some other intelligent people responded here.

It’s easy to scoff at this whole “You will own nothing, and you will be happy” phrase, but it’s really gone too far already.

If you wanna keep your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) that you’re subscribed to before deleting your account, I made a free tool to help you store and offload that data.

It’s called Reddit Account Manager, and it’s 100% free.

You can also use it to manage your Lemmy account(s), of course.