I’m totally on board with private messaging, private money, private document sharing, and am now trying to migrate to a more private phone. 

The Linux thing though… That’s the toughest hurdle, at least for old folks like me.

I briefly looked into Linux like fifteen years ago. I remember at that time a lot of Linux people used a program called ‘vi’ which was their version of Notepad. The arcane keyboard commands required to perform simple tasks that would ordinarily be done with a quick mouse click or arrow key were such a turnoff. It wasn’t that the program was unlearnable; given enough time, I no doubt would’ve picked it up. It just seemed like whoever created that thing made it *intentionally* difficult to use.

I’m guessing that particular app isn’t a thing anymore, but the whole experience kind of gave me a mentality of, “Linux users like doing things the hard way.” Whether it was the expectation that users compile their own apps, or watching these guys repeatedly typing ‘sudo’ time after time before each command line operation, it felt like the Linux community as a whole just enjoyed making simple tasks unnecessarily difficult. 

That said, it’s been nearly two decades and big tech has become a force for evil, surveillance, and censorship. Maybe it’s time to give Linux another look. Perhaps typing ‘sudo’ a few dozen times per day and memorizing an obscure keyboard combination to move the cursor up a line in my text editor is a small price to pay for a more secure and private operating system.