Consumer Disobedience: Protest for Huge F*cking Nerds (and you, too)

One of the things I love about Linux is that it’s made by people who actually give a shit. Sorry for being crass, but it’s clear to me that the developers of Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows just don't have the same level of passion. I can tell just by using those systems.

Linux devs? They’re doing the hard work to fix the issues they’re facing as Linux users.

The same holds true for other open source projects, too. Most of them are eating the proverbial dog food (meaning they use their own project and want to improve it for themselves).

This is important because, in my view, this is the one and only way worthwhile software is developed. People who build software as their day job (and who don’t actually have to use said software)? They don’t care and it’s often very obvious when an app or service has no care or attention put into it.

Funnily enough, it’s almost universally the proprietary apps that suck that hard. Sure, there might be a level of “polish” (which users often tend to conflate with the dark patterns they enjoy), but that’s because of ubiquitous, persistent telemetry collection.

The fact is: most proprietary apps suck. They especially suck if they’re built into an “ecosystem.” How do I know this? Because there are so many free and open source alternative clients for the filth-ridden world of the cloud. And these alternative clients provide a much better experience compared to their first-party counterparts.

So let’s dive in and talk about third party chat clients.

Buckle up, though.

Before we get to my list of third party clients, we should define our terms:

A Third Party Client (or Alternative Client) is an application that is meant to be used in place of the official application. For example, the official client for Instagram is the Instagram app for Android or iOS. An alternative client for Instagram would be an app created outside of Meta, that connects to the Instagram service, and gives you a similar or even an improved user experience.

Critically, an alternative client could provide you with a better timeline, paginated scrolling, the ability to zoom in on pictures, etc.

A Little History

It used to be that alternative clients were the norm. Online services would offer their content as a website and, usually, as an RSS feed. You could then use any number of different RSS Clients to get an improved reading experience for, let's say, Giant Bomb, Gamespot, or AintItCoolNews. God, I'm getting old.

But it's not just online news services. My first experience were with alternative clients for desktop chat apps (what we used to call Instant Messengers, back in my day).

AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, IRC… you could use an app like Trillian to consolidate your disparate contacts (a.k.a your buddy lists) into a single application—thus saving on the precious limited system resources and uniting the fragmented world of Instant Messengers into a single UI.

Even platforms like Twitter, reddit, and Facebook all had community-made third party apps that you could use to access those platforms. Then, attitudes changed...

A History of Hostility

Remember when reddit used to be good? Back then, there were also good reddit apps for your phone. Now, you only have two choices: use the official reddit app or make the smart decision and quit reddit entirely.

Fact is, back when reddit was a useful tool, they respected the intelligence and autonomy of their users and had no objections to BaconReader (or other third party clients) using their API.

That was until 2023 when reddit’s CEO /u/spez (Steve Huffman a.k.a Grand Wizard of reddit a.k.a. ‘The Mista Rogers Killa’) forced the platform to gate their API behind a paywall. Effectively strangling the competition these third party clients created in (what I’d argue was) an illegal move on reddit's to both stifle innovation and commit tortious interference with these businesses.

They Have No Legal Right

Despite their protests against our right to alternative clients, they have no legs to stand on. I often cite Sony v. Bleem!, but that’s because it’s very important case law—at least in my layman, non-lawyer understanding of the law.

For those not in the know, Bleem! was a commercially available PlayStation®️ emulator for the PC (and, weirdly, the Sega Dreamcast). Sony sued... because of course they did.

Sony made the dubious and untenable claim that copyright law gave them a monopoly over the PlayStation®️ games market. And while Sony rightfully holds the trademark for the name PlayStation®️, the court held that quote:

Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly.

That last line? It's important. Copyright law does not grant a monopoly to a platform holder simply because they own a copyright over the code or a trademark or whatever.

Furthermore, I’d argue that there’s no difference between the PlayStation®️ platform and social media or chat app platforms. These companies want to claim they have absolute control over these platforms—yet there’s no law to support that theory beyond the dark, private laws buried in their Terms of Service.

How to Protest

As alternative clients disappear, so too does innovation and competition. Without competition, power consolidates in the hands of the platform holders and—when that happens—the platforms inevitably stagnate (hello reddit, Facebook, and Twitter). Worse, though? Incentives shift.

No longer are the platform holders forced to compete on the grounds of a better user experience, more ethical data collection practices, improved security, etc.

Instead, once they’ve cut out the competition that these alternatives pose, they are free to exploit end users totally unchallenged. And these users have been left with no choice but to use the official app or disengage from the service.

Meanwhile, the official app can start exfiltrating even more data about a user. Security practices can grow ever-more complacent as there are fewer outside eyes testing in good faith.

Alternative clients are not just a fun thing for nerds to geek out about. In my opinion, they are quite literally the lifeblood of a free and open Internet. Without them, at best the Internet is simply not worth using.

Alternative clients provide:

• Innovation.
• A better user experience.
• Competition with platform holders.
• Good faith (not to mention, free) security research.
• Minimized—or outright removal of—anti-human features including algorithmic feeds.
• A daily reminder of the ideals of the free and open web.
• A check against vertical monopolies.
• And they build trust and goodwill with the nerdiest folks.

So no wonder these zero-sum fools are up in arms against alternative clients. They believe what’s good for users is bad for their bottom line.

Stand up and fight (by installing third party apps)

Look, it is incredibly important that we fight tooth and nail for our right to use alternative clients.

Why? Because every platform holder argues against the reasons I listed above. Google, Meta, and reddit have all lied in testimony to governments all around the world claiming that alternative clients harm innovation, competition, AND security.

Allow me to full-throatedly double down on that statement: These are outright, bald-faced lies.

These businessbros are lying because their gatekeeper masters believe they stand to make more money if they don’t have to work to improve their user’s experiences. They think they'll make more money when they don't have to consider the security implications of their unethical code. They're convinced they'll get richer when they can exploit their users, totally unchallenged.

At least, that's the excuse they tell Bloomberg.

In reality, they stand to gain an unfathomable level of control if we will lose ownership of our own computers.

And that’s really what this is all about. If we let them convince us we don’t have the right to use alternative clients? Then we don’t have ownership over our computing. And at that point your devices stop being YOUR devices and become tools of oppression.

Truthfully, using alternative clients is a form of civil consumer disobedience. I hope you’ll join me in breaking their dark, private laws as a form of protest.

Now, I never meant for this to be some longwinded diatribe about your rights as a user. Originally, the idea for this article was "The Sublime Delight of Third Party Clients." Woof. What a different article it became, huh?

But anyway, here are a bunch of alternative clients I like and I'd encourage you to try (to varying degrees)!

Mastodon

Look, Mastodon isn’t proprietary. It’s a terrific, ethical, and federated service. I’ll espouse the beautiful gospel of the fediverse at the drop of a hat, any chance I get, all day long. And while Mastodon has an official app, I find that there are alternative apps that just work better.

For example, my Mastodon client of choice is Tusky. It’s terrific for a number of reasons. But my favorite is that Tusky supports logging in to multiple Mastodon accounts at the same time.

Also, the Mastodon app appears to be Electron-based where Tusky appears to be native (as native as an Android app can get, anyway).

🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈

You might notice the above headline is written in emoji. Why? Well, that’s because YouTube really hates 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈. Like, really, really hates 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈.

“But Gardiner, this blog isn’t YouTube. Why are you censoring yourself on your own blog?”

Well, that’s because I’ve got a YouTube Channel and YouTube REALLY hates 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈.

If a YouTube creator’s on- and/or off-platform behavior harms our users, community, employees or ecosystem, we may respond based on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the egregiousness of their actions and whether a pattern of harmful behavior exists. Our response will range from suspending a creator’s privileges to account termination.

That’s from YouTube’s rules. Emphasis mine. And YouTube considers alternative clients to be harmful (to their bottom line, of course).

So when I tell you that 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈 eschews the entire YouTube algorithm to provide you with a client that respects your subscriptions and never pushes brainrot filth in your face… you can see why they would consider 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈 to be a threat.

With 🅶🆁🅰🆈🅹🅰🆈, you can access the content you want to watch without feeding (and without being subjected to) the YouTube algorithm, plus, you can avoid 𝖆𝖉𝖘. It also works as a Peertube client among many other services!

But wait…

🅥🅐🅒🅤🅤🅜🅣🅤🅑🅔

If you wanted an alternative YouTube client but one that was for your homegrown Home Theater PC, look no further than 🅥🅐🅒🅤🅤🅜🅣🅤🅑🅔. It’s a desktop Linux app, available as a Flatpak, and it’s got some awesome features!

Not only does it function almost identically to the standard YouTube Smart TV application with all the bells and whistles—but it also includes an integrated De-arrow extension AND it can also 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖈𝖐 𝖆𝖉𝖘.

It’s pretty neat!

Proton

I sent a preview of this article to my brothers. One of them tried to argue that “you wouldn't tell someone to switch to an ‘alternative Windows client,’ you'd tell them to switch to Linux.”

But that got me thinking: What is Proton if it's not an “alternative client” to Windows? It’s free and open source, it gives you access to stuff that's locked behind Window’s proprietary APIs without all the filthy Windows telemetry, it’s available on Linux, and it gives you a (mostly) improved experience over using Windows proper.

Now, granted, Steam is an ugly pile of proprietary APIs, too. So you win some, you lose some.

But I'd just like to interject that Proton isn't exclusive to Steam. You can get Proton (or any community spin like GE-Proton, etc.) through many distro’s repos, Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, ProtonUp-QT, among many other places.

It's honestly really cool and I think it’s an apt comparison.

Emulators

Come to think of it, emulators are also basically “alternative clients” for the consoles they're emulating. Neat.

Home Assistant

If you’ve ever bought a smart home product, you know it can be an insane headache. In fact, I’ve written an article about how to choose smart home equipment.

It’s a proverbial goldrush of unethical companies looking to bind you into their shitty ecosystems and force you to download yet another filthy app on your phone… just so you can turn a light on or off.

Well, that’s why Home Assistant is such a life-saver. Basically, I won’t buy a product to integrate into my smart home unless it’s confirmed to work with Home Assistant. Why? Because I’m not going to install 101 different apps on my phone—each one asking for permissions to use my camera, microphone, scan for nearby Bluetooth devices, and my GPS location.

I believe Home Assistant emphatically qualifies as an alternative client and it’s an exemplar of the ways free, open source alternatives can simplify your life and your computing experience.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger has lamentably become one of the lowest common denominators for communication among my friends and family. Likely, your circles too.

In fact it’s so apparently ubiquitous that when I go out in public, I hear the Messenger ping at least a few times a day. I often hear the Messenger audio/video call ring a few times a week, too.

However, if you care even one iota about your privacy, installing a Meta app on your phone is a non-starter. And it’s not like you can use the web version of Messenger on your phone. Meta has gone out of their way to prevent that.

Here’s the thing, though: on one hand, you definitely want to talk to your friends and family. On the other hand, you don’t want to use Meta anything. And convincing everyone in your circles to switch to Signal or—god forbid, Matrix—is a Sisyphean task.

Enter Beeper.

Beeper is an alternative chat client that attempts to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Trillian and Pidgin. Beeper is not open source, so that might kill your interest right there… and if its non-FOSS-y status didn’t dissuade you, it’s also owned by Automattic. Yes. That Automattic.

However, Beeper has some redeemable qualities which you can read about in my article here.

Given that I’ve already written extensively about it, I won’t go too much deeper herhere. But as it stands, Beeper is one of the only third party chat clients that connects to modern chat services and that’s super useful.

If you know of others, sound off in the comments!

About The Author:

Gardiner Bryant

I'm an educator, free software advocate, and storyteller. My passion lies in Linux gaming, self-hosting, the fediverse, and the human stories behind the tech we use every day. I believe in privacy, justice, community, and integrity.