as a consumer accepting that
That’s the special condition we get in the US, though - there is little or no effective choice across the spectrum. Without regulation, corporations will become asymptotic to maximum financial extraction techniques. There are few real choices at the consumer level and the barriers to entry are such that a single consumer - or even an uncoordinated (read: without a national, staffed organization) - cannot circumvent the system.
Maybe in somewhere free like the EU or SEA. In the US, most phones bought from a carrier (and most sales are that way, some exclusively so) are locked so that no other SIM (e or physical) can be used.
Is it necessary to be FOSS, or is free good enough? If cost is the only driver and the backup is local to a regular device, I can recommend SyncBack for simple backups on their free version. I bought Pro several years ago and there is no ongoing licensing fee. When they add certain services I would find useful, or as tech progresses, I’ll upgrade but there’s no ongoing cost and it runs reliably for me. It’s also very windows-centric in terms of its design and UI, which makes it relatively easy to use. Granted I wouldn’t give it to my mother to set up for herself, but it will run unattended once set up.
These should, instead, be implemented by NFC. You tap their “reader” with your phone, never surrendering it, and they get your ID number just like a merchant gets your CC info for a charge. Their backend pulls up your record just as if they’d scanned the qr code on the back of your physical card. Or you can locally transmit a facsimile image to a promiscuous reader (airdrop/nearby share) you approve.
This is a “because we can” thing, right?
Nobody actually enjoys these social networks. We only stay marginally involved so we can keep tabs on our older family members and maybe a group that won’t migrate to a generic platform.
Fair enough, though the app is stand-alone. AFAIK there’s no sync function (I’m iOS/Windows). The files are local and export is to whatever filesystem is on the device (iOS allows any connected cloud service).
May I suggest Concepts? In over a decade of searching for a pencil-on-paper analog, it’s as close as I’ve found and it’s dropped my paper usage from over 1000 sheets a year to under 50. There’s a $10 (one time) cost for pdf import and export. The canvas is “infinite” but you can import a PSF of your favorite note-taking sheet, with or without guide lines/grid (or use the apps customizable grid), and copy it about the space. Then, when exporting, export just the PDF areas (The sheets/outlines you imported) into a single, paginated PDF file.
It’s available for iOS, android, and windows, though the three versions do not have synchronized feature and the files are incompatible across platforms (for now, at least). There are other paid add-ons, but I’ve not found them necessary or useful for note taking.
a perfectly legal collection, not give anyone else access
I would love to meet this unicorn.
The question I have is what can we do (in the marketplace of paying devs for indie projects) to prevent them from adding improvements and merely keep the projects compliant as new OSes swap out old libraries? Most of the really good, popular utilities have been ruined by bloat and, in the most successful cases, sale to corporations which instantly enshitify.