Leaving big tech behind is great, but don't actually delete your accounts!

It's pretty en vogue to leave big tech behind these days, and for good reason. It's getting easier for someone with a slightly above-average competency with computers to self-host and these services are getting more and more hostile to their users every day. It also helps that some big YouTubers are "de-Googling ".

I think this is great! The internet used to be far more decentralised than it is now and I want to see it go back in that direction. I loved being a member of multiple Forums, and stumbling on to people's own little slice of the internet.

OK, I'm sold let's leave big tech behind!

Slow down there, turbo. There are some risks to just going and deleting all of your accounts.

Wait what??!? I can't just sign in to Google delete my account and be done with it? NO!

Ok, so what are the risks, why can't I press that sweet, sweet red delete my account button?

The rise of social sign in

Over the last 10 or 15 years or so a lot of the web has been moving towards using these buttons that you see everywhere. The good old "Sign in with" buttons. I'm not going to bore you with the intricate details of oAuth and how these actually function. That can be another 10 blog posts and a book. I will say that these buttons are little lock-in devices for all of these companies.

If you go and press that big old delete account button on say your Google, or Facebook account you lose access to all of those accounts tied to it.

What?! How??

You see when you press these sign in with social buttons on a website, you are tying your access to that website through that social service. Some websites and services, let you untangle that link, but others do not. Some websites and services don't like the idea of dealing with anything but social sign-in. I get it to be honest, it can simplify a lot of things for service providers. It is more user-hostile though locking you further into these bigger tech companies.

If the service provides e-mail, the risk is bigger

For those who want to de-Google, or de-Microsoft or de-Apple, you've probably had your account for a while and you probably use their e-mail addresses. You have probably used that e-mail address for accounts you don't even remember you have. No matter how thorough you think you have been with updating your e-mail address, you will have inevitably missed something. I left Gmail behind 3 years ago, and I still find accounts I need to update that I don't login to often.

If you press that delete button someone can re-register your e-mail!

Once someone has your e-mail address they have control of your life. Even accounts you have updated to your new e-mail, it's possible a customer support person will help you via verification with your old e-mail address and some personal information they can gather from marketing and spam e-mails that still go to your old account. Deleting an e-mail account is a very dangerous thing to do.

Impersonation can be a risk for anyone.

With social media, there is a risk of someone getting your handle and impersonating you in ways that can have a negative impact on your life. From trying to convince family members that they are talking with you, to even acquaintances who might have a slight degree of trust in you. It's a risk to your reputation. This doesn't only effect famous people, this can effect everyone.

So what do I do if I want to leave big tech behind?

You just stop using it, it's that simple. Don't delete your account unless you are 100% sure you have never used social sign in with it and you understand the full implications to doing so.

For example, I let my Twitter account delete itself after inactivating it. I never used social sign in with Twitter. I knew the risks, I did my own internal-risk assessment and I felt comfortable doing it, even with the real risk of impersonation.

I still have my LinkedIn and Github accounts even though I no longer use their services. I left those accounts active and blank, because my own internal risk-assessment swung strongly the other direction.

Are you leaving big tech behind? What other tips and tricks do you have?