The preface to the following is that I work for Facebook. Yeah, I know.

Recently I've been more consciously moving away from Big Tech. Part of that is changing personal habits, like trying to avoid Amazon for purchasing things. Part is switching services, like using Hey for email instead of Outlook or using Notion for documents. I do still use several services from the heavy hitters - I use Bing over Google currently for my search engine, but I am looking into switching to DuckDuckGo. I still use Outlook for my calendar.

When I started this website, I finally began moving away from Google Analytics in favor of Fathom - a simpler solution that's also privacy compliant. It's been really easy to integrate with, and I'm slowly moving all my existing websites over as well. I've noticed more accurate visitor numbers week to week - no more ad block suppression! I'm hoping I can move away from Google Fonts sometime in the near future.

It feels a little refreshing to disconnect a bit and move to smaller, more focused areas. A lot of these services cost money instead of being offered for free, but I've found the quality is higher and supporting smaller companies just makes me feel better.