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02 Back to an MP3 player - Stop with all that streaming
Fuck you, big global music algorithm! You will NOT control my listening. The first step I took towards getting rid of my
reliance on a smart phone was purchasing an MP3 player and cancelling Spotify Premium.
I went for the Innioasis Y1, a blatant iPod knock-off design that can be had for cheap online. It's not fancy, and it's not
perfect, but it works. Some people report SD card failures and Bluetooth drops, but I've not had a single problem so far. A quick search of Reddit
will give you a good idea.
I still had all my old MP3 files from "back in the day" so they went on the device first, then I started stockpiling new MP3 files. More on that in future post (spoiler: super easy, just like it was in the MP3 golden era).
01 The Beginning - A longing for simpler times?
I am a cliche. I grew up as a child of the 90's. A time before social media, before mobile phones, before TikTok and algorithms and all that trash. I am
one of the "lucky ones" who enjoyed their teenage years free from Facebook, free from influencers, free from the grips of that phone in your pocket 24/7.
My rose tinted glasses remember better times. The "early internet" was awesome. Geocities? MySpace? Hell yes! Then as I approached my upper
teens to early twenties, everything changed. Facebook exploded, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, SnapChat, brainrot all followed, and everything went to shit.
Working in tech, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the dystopian modern forever-online hellhole. A prisoner to my smartphone, a convict
of the algorithm. I knew something needed to change...