We have to do it. Some of us have to do it in different ways. Doing small things where you can is all well and good but literally none of us are making a single impact in capitalism by making different choices about how we're forced to participate in it. Focus on tearing it down together rather than picking apart individual choices because those individual choices still result in participating in capitalism.
Another argument in the same vein is using Linux-based operating systems instead of the usual suspects. You're still feeding into the big SV monopoly that is at the forefront of surveillance capitalism, tracking and law enforcement. Even if you pirate every every piece of software, when someone asks for a report, essay, article or w/e you'll hand them a docx cause that's what you know how to do so there's never any pressure to use format that are not under their control. The perversity of it is that even if you "steal" the software you're still basically saying "no real alternative is possible".
The counters to not doing this are common counters to veganism: that sounds like effort I'm not willing to put in, i have to relearn how to do things i already know how to do, i have to learn how to do new things to supplant the old ones i can no longer do, but what about my video games (the bacon of computer programs) and so on.
The pros are also similar. It's something you "can just do". Most of the things you do are in a browser anyway nowadays so the OS matters a lot less. Yes there are people that absolutely require bespoke software that will not run on any other OS, 99% of people however, don't.
For the record I'm not trying to equivocate inflicting needless suffering on sentient beings with running Microsoft Office or something. They're not the same thing, obviously.
shit that's well thought out
Yeah I was going to say it’s a harder comparison because not that the surveillance state is good but it is a different type of bad vs factory farms and sweatshops. But I get where you’re coming from in comparing the ‘why don’t we do this’. At the end of the day, we ALL do bad stuff. Stuff we can — and should — work on. But beating yourself up over it only inflicts guilt and not motivation to change, just as superiority makes you feel you’re good enough and have nothing to work towards.