Stimpunks Foundation
for the meeting where you decide what to buy
Broadside · Open edition
Side A of B
Boring Technology
Tools that are old, plain and open enough to outlive the companies that sell them. Plain files, ordinary folders, formats anyone can open, and copies you keep yourself. A boring tool is not a worse tool. It is one you can still use when something changes.
Own the source.
Rent only the convenience.
renting the tool is fine · renting the only copy is not
Where does the only copy live?
If the answer is “in the account”, you are renting your own work. Find out what exists solely inside a service you do not control — and what you would still have without it.
Can we get it out?
Not in principle — actually. Ask for the export before you need it, and open what comes back. An export that only that product can read is not an exit.
What if the terms change?
Prices rise, features move to higher tiers, companies close or are sold. Ask what that costs you here, and who on your team pays it first.
“When a tool changes or closes, the cost does not land evenly. It lands hardest on people with the least time, money and energy to move everything at short notice.”
Stimpunks Foundation · Boring Technology
Stimpunks Foundation
the words they will use, and what you can do
Broadside · Open edition
Side B of B
The words people use
They are simpler than they sound. You do not need them to protect your work — they are here in case you meet them.
- Rentier. Someone who makes money owning a thing and charging for access. A landlord does not build you a house each month. They own one, and you pay to stay.
- Software as a Service. Software you rent instead of buy. It runs on their computers. Most of it works this way now.
- Technofeudalism. The argument that large platforms rebuilt an old arrangement: a few own the ground, everyone else works land they will never own.
- Enshittification. A pattern of decline. Good to users first, then worse for users to please paying customers, then worse for everyone to please shareholders.
What you can do
You do not have to do all of it. Any one step helps.
- Pick what matters. Not everything needs protecting. Find the work you would be sorry to lose.
- Keep a copy you control. On your own device or drive, not only in an account.
- Prefer open formats. Plain text and standard file types over formats only one app can open.
- Write down how it works. A short page is enough. It is what makes a setup survivable by someone else.
- Check you can get your things out. Try an export before you need one.
What it does, and doesn't
- it does keep your originals readable
- it does make moving between tools possible
- it does lower what a change costs you
- it does not require leaving every paid service
- it does not require running your own servers
- it does not require being technical
- it does not replace backups
One test for anything built with AI: if the AI stopped working tomorrow, would this still run? If the answer is no, the dependency moved. It did not go away.
Rented tool → convenience you can lose · owned source → work you keep
Adapted from the Boring Technology Why Sheet at stimpunks.org/why/boring-technology, which carries the full detail. The longer argument — including why generative AI has made plain, portable tooling easier to build rather than harder — is at stimpunks.org/fieldguide/it/boring-tech. Enshittification is Cory Doctorow's term; technofeudalism is argued at book length by Yanis Varoufakis (2023), and appears as datafeudalism in Sebastián Saura García (2024). Our own setup, and the parts of it that are not tidy, are documented at stimpunks.org/fieldguide/it/knowledge-system.