PurchaseWithPurpose

Given the events happening in the world, I find that many people are trying to find a way to have agency and an effect the state of the world. I believe I have found a few options that anyone, anywhere in the world can use and will be generally seen as a benefit to their citizens and policy makers regardless of ideology, while reducing the power of authoritarian governments. Given that the “No Kings” protest is today, I thought it would be a good time to present one.

The first one I want to provide and discuss is pushing Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives to local government.

Your initial reaction may feel this idea is unexciting and insignificant. It’s kind of supposed to. My goal was to come up with ideas that could be implemented regardless of the local political environment, while still having an effect at reducing the power/finances/influence of authoritarian forces and improving /increasing the strength/resiliency of local leadership.

Momentum

Many people and businesses are moving away from US tech for various reasons (ex. politics, privacy concerns). I believe, one area that is mostly overlooked and can have a significant impact on improving the goals of the exodus, is local government purchasing.

There has been movement on this front with some European state governments moving from Windows to Linux.

I’ve looked through several of my local government’s planned budgets for 2026 and the amount that a city/town spends on IT software licenses varies from roughly 0.3-3.5% ($750k-5M; the larger the city the smaller the %, but the larger the amount).

I believe this is a great time to push the benefits of moving to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives. I think arguments can be made, regardless of political ideology, that switching would be good for everyone involved (tax payer, government official, FOSS developer, city/town in general, etc.).

Benefits

The first benefit is the cost (free). While technically free, FOSS projects are typically maintained through donations and community contributions. If a city transitioned to FOSS alternatives, I would suggest that the city consider contributing a percentage of the savings from replaced proprietary software back to the FOSS developers, supporting the sustainability of these projects.

The second major benefit is that FOSS is “open,” meaning its code is publicly accessible and can be used indefinitely once adopted. This transparency allows long-term resilience, reducing the risk of sudden cost increases or vendor lock-in associated with proprietary software.

Given the savings, a city’s IT department could hire additional IT professionals, either temporarily to facilitate the transition or permanently, as deemed appropriate by the IT department (funded by the savings). The remainder of the saving could be directed toward bolstering underfunded programs, reducing taxes, or addressing other community priorities (whatever option the city officials are interested in / motivated toward).

I believe this approach could reduce unnecessary expenses, while also keeping more tax funds local, and enhancing each town/city’s technological resiliency.

How to Implement This (in order of Difficulty)

1. Send an email to the local government (alt. call on phone)
2. Show up in person to city council meetings, public forums, and community events
3. Set a meeting with a local government official to discuss
4. Build coalitions to amplify your message
5. Leverage local media to amplify your voice
6. Others?

List of Potential Software Used

I’m not sure there are any FOSS alternatives for these software types (if you know of any please let me know). Potential government specific software (rough):

However, local government specific software only seems to account for 50% or less of town/city listed budget cost (no good source on this; government budgets are very vague). I’m assuming (big assumption) that the majority of the remainder are from software that has a FOSS alternative (Office Suites (Microsoft Office), Communication & Collaboration (ex. Zoom), Project Management (ex. Trello), Creative (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator), etc.).

Note: A budget source I was able to find for Seattle, WA, USA (Page 23/27) has “Windows Systems” as a specific line item ($13.4M for 2026, ~20% of "Technology Infrastructure Budget"). This appears to account for employee salaries/benefits, but even so, I would expect the salaries (24.5 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)) would account for less than 50% of the total.

Perhaps the FOSS alternative is not up to 100% of the current proprietary use-cases, but it doesn’t need to be for the majority of users. If 1 out of 10 government users need a specific use-case, buy that user the proprietary software and have the others use the FOSS. Some of the saved money can go to having the FOSS developer (or a hired developer) add that use-case to the FOSS option.

Conclusion

Hopefully, I made my case for you pushing your local government to implement FOSS. If there is interest, I (or we, collaboratively) can make a non-location specific email for people to send to their local government (lower the bar to potentially effect change). I feel a document and/or infographic with specific FOSS alternatives and even potentially migration strategies would be more effective when trying to persuade local officials.

Please feel free to let me know if I should add anything, made any mistakes, or if you just want to talk about the idea.

Notes

1. If you are curious about your town/city, internet search your town/city’s name and budget (should be first result). Finding the actual numbers for the different expenses is more work (every town/city budget I have looked at is set up differently). Usually the items of interest are listed in the “Information Technology” group / section or an expense line item like “Software Purchasing and Licensing”. There is usually an account number for the same type of expense (ex. “Software Purchasing”) that you can easily find and track throughout the document.
2. Utility Billing, Financial, HR/Payroll, and Document & Records Management could be relatively easy places to create additional FOSS alternatives to further reduce government software purchasing (if one does not already exist). I feel like Permit and Code management software, while specific codes and permits are location specific, could be a potential place too with an overarching software that allows uploading and parsing of local codes.
3. I wanted this to be further along before I presented it. I wanted specific alternatives for different software with a nice infographic that would be easy to share (ex. Purchase with Purpose infographic). Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten it there yet.
4. Mods, if this doesn’t fit in your community feel free to remove it.

Hi, I just wanted to share this (not so) small victory!

Back then, my partner didn't know about this movement at all, but I have been very vocal about it ever since I started making changes myself so my digital life's values aligned more with what I truly cared for in real life.

So over the past couple of months my partner has been progressing so much! Always asking for alternatives when he finds himself using a Google product, changing how much time he spents on Meta's social media, deleting Twitter, and so much more. I occasionally find him watching Invidious :)

But that's not the focus of the story (even if it still makes me super happy and proud)!, but what happened because of my partner's changes.

Soo my partner recently entered college (yay!) and because of the way he is, he's always open to talk about things he truly cares about. So in one of the first classes one professor teased that one of the future assigments was gonna be posting a video to instagram about a specific topic and trying it to go viral. My partner quickly went to talk to the professor and discuss an alternative assignment because "[he] doesn't use any Meta products". The professor seemed genuinely interested about the concept, so he saved it to research it later in his free time. He then offered YouTube as an alternative (lol), so my partner gave the same answer, (not being able to go that much in depth because it was in the middle of the class). The professor said to my partner that he was gonna find more information about this topic becuase he was deeply intrigued by it, awesome!

But that's not the end!

About a week later, a random student approached my partner to ask him about what he said in class! Appearently she was very interested in what he said because she doesn't like modern social media and wasn't aware that people could make a change, and that there are alternatives etc (Sound silly on paper, but in my country our entire youth is on Instagram. The idea of not having it on your phone feels isolating). So because this was during free time, my partner could go full in-depth about the issues! He explained everything: Environmental impact, fascism, impact on mental health, the U.S and Israel, privacy concerns, AI, and so on. The student was super invested and kept asking questions so my partner could further explain some topics, and she was writing down some stuff!

Extremely happy that my journey has been able to impact this many people! Not considering all the Reddit discussion ab the topic I engaged in that might've left a mark in some people haha. Happy to have made the world a better place, even if just by a little (and the main responsible for my degoogle+ journey is @fallenwalnut@lemmy.world , so thanks to you too :)

This is clearly a sign that the product failed to draw in enough customers and its viability was overhyped.

Hopefully, it is the start of the AI bubble bursting.

This is only the beginning

Google steals people's content through AI summaries, trains off their work and now is looking to rewrite their articles

The good news is that there are legitimate alternatives

SWITCH TODAY!

All resources you need 👇

• Kagi -> For a paid ad-free premium experience
• Ecosia -> Similar experience to Google while supporting a good cause
• Qwant -> Building its own results based in the EU
• DuckDuckGo -> Privacy-focused search

Detailed guide: https://purchasewithpurpose.io/category/search-engine/

Our actions and voices do make a difference! Keep AI out of games and reward original creative work.

Could be as high as 20% of the company!

We can't keep rewarding Big Tech for choosing AI over people.

We need to make the switch to support smaller & better businesses - reminder about purchasewithpurpose.io to help you get started.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/i8fLH

Instead, they could have used that money to pay their taxes...

Anyway, be prepared for astroturfing and a ramp-up of disinformation.

The best thing one can do is vote for politicians who don't take their money. And stop using their products.

A very surprising turn of events, given that this was being pushed so heavily before.

The insane AI push is purely driven by fear of being left behind.

No one is actually stopping to ask whether it is all worth it.

Your daily reminder that by supporting Big Tech, you are contributing to the insane wealth disparity.

Rather support smaller businesses, where your money helps create actual jobs and grow the working class.

If you haven't started your journey, please check out: https://purchasewithpurpose.io/

There are so many excellent choices out there that give you a similar or better experience.

It is worth noting that both the hardware and software of Fairphone is heavily dependent on a Chinese company T2Mobile.

For those looking to avoid both US and Chinese companies, then the Jolla phone is the way to go.

No better time than now to start your journey!

If you need help along the way, check out: purchasewithpurpose.eu

This is massive news. Means companies can't create defensible IP from any AI-generated work.

Interesting to know how far this extends to... movies, code?

We need more of these lawsuits. Put an end to the excessive 30% fees for captive marketplaces.

Some may have believed they were against AI being used for war. They just don’t want it to make the final kill decision.

The argument given by those supporting them is that AI in the military was inevitable, so their position is a reasonable one.

If ChatGPT wants to replace health professionals, it should be held liable for the "advice" it gives.

Your daily reminder to stop buying from Amazon...

Great to see others following France in moving away from Big US Tech.

There are many excellent alternatives out there. If you haven't already, look to make the switch yourself!

For those who don't know, we recently created a Discord server:

https://discord.gg/5JFGRsSak8 (It's a small community, but starting to grow)

The question is whether there is an alternative that has stood as a strong contender? Also, is it worth switching now that Discord has reversed its position?

When will we simply accept that it's a bubble and move on, instead of pouring a relentless amount of resources into it.

And they are already starting to sell out for next year....

This comes on the back of a significant drop in their global numbers.

A reminder that sustained long-term boycotts are possible against businesses that are deemed "big to fail"

This comes on the back of a significant drop in their global numbers.

A reminder that sustained long-term boycotts are possible against businesses that are deemed "big to fail"

If you haven't already, check out Codeberg. It has a strong anti-AI stance and everything you need to host an open-source project.

Also means not supporting Microsoft's use of your work in their models, but instead supporting a non-profit organisation based in Germany.

We moved PwP repo there without any issues. Here to help if you need advice in moving your own.

This should come as no surprise to anyone, with Facebook, Instagram and YouTube being no better.