What do you mean by “turn the tide for the better”?
For example, efforts in the areas of data protection, freedom of information, combating misinformation, improving working conditions in the online sector, creating fair digital remuneration models and so on and so forth. Pretty much things that the Electronic Frontier Foundation, NOYB and many other such organizations are committed to.
The EFF is great. Perhaps going a little bit off-topic, the EFF creates plug-ins, but I wonder why the EFF doesn’t create a privacy-based ecosystem similar to Proton?
A VPN provider or a system like Proton with encrypted mail, VPN, etc. is entirely based on trust and yet we trust our privacy almost entirely to for-profit corporations, which are inherently untrustworthy over the long haul. It would be cool if a non-profit with a long history of defending privacy, like the EFF, developed such a system. Mozilla seems to be moving in that direction, but it seems like a good fit for EFF too.
The thing is, for-profit doesn’t equal bad. There are a small subset of companies that aim to provide the best service for modest gain, and IMO, they are inherently as trustworthy as orgs like the EFF.
Major parts of today’s internet are controlled by extremely powerful corporations - that’s just a fact. Private individuals and even committed activists have very little to no influence on how these corporations shape their part of the internet. Hence the analogy with climate change: this problem, which threatens the whole of humanity, could probably also be solved, or at least be tackled in a meaningful way. However, a solution is only possible if those corporations that are largely responsible live up to their responsibilities. Of course, this is not to say that private individuals should give up all hope and not try everything they can. Look at it this way: every post or comment on Lemmy is the equivalent of a properly disposed plastic bottle - just a drop in the ocean, but a drop nonetheless. What I was getting at overall is that you can certainly make a contribution, but this small contribution will be of little use as long as those who are actually responsible do not live up to their responsibility, because only these players could turn the tide for the better; but unfortunately they don’t; quite the opposite, I think. Nevertheless, every contribution to improving the situation is important. So please don’t let my pessimism get you down.
