After all the chaos that has befallen the tech industry in 2023 — from Elon Musk’s militantly ignorant management of the site formerly known as Twitter to the ongoing debate over whether artificial intelligence poses a serious threat to humanity or just to people’s jobs — 2024 appears to be approaching where we left off we continue.
REMOVE SOME DM OPTIONS
Last week, I tried to tally up how many apps I use that allow others to send me direct messages. I got to eight (Messages app on my iPad, Messages app on my Android phone, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google Voice, Slack, X, and Signal) and thought that was a bit much.
Then I realized I left out Instagram and LinkedIn.
Disabling each of these disruptive mechanisms isn’t in the cards, except for Instagram, where you can set the app to discard message requests from people you don’t follow, but I can commit to ignoring at least some of them.
DON’T BUY A HOME YET
I’m extremely optimistic about the environmental potential of electric vehicles, but I’m still resistant to buying one just yet.
This is because this purchase has been postponed until 2025 or later.
a) giving automakers time to complete their transition to the Tesla-designed North American Charging Standard plug, and b) giving us a much broader selection of EVs eligible for the Inflation Reduction Act’s generous tax. credit.
Meanwhile, our aging Toyota Prius remains one of the most fuel-efficient cars ever made, and the replacement system battery we received in April after the original battery failed after 126,000 miles will get us through next year with ease. And this purchase postponement will also free up some money to replace our gas stove with an induction model.
REBALANCE OUR VIDEO SERVICES BUDGET
Streaming TV services are happily free of the contract terms and early termination fees that plague traditional pay TV, but the ease of automatic credit card payments could make it almost possible for us to keep paying them long after their services have dwindled.
Our broadcast budget is already low because we have good enough over-the-air reception that we can watch local stations for free with an antenna. But the $40 per month we pay for the basic Sling TV service, down from $20 five years ago, deserves a closer look.
We don’t watch nearly that much TV, and our viewing is usually focused around specific events like tennis tournaments (my wife) and postseason baseball (me). This is an argument for taking advantage of the flexibility of streaming and only paying for the service during these months.
This would have the added benefit of reducing the commitments we reluctantly place on the disinformation machine at Fox News.
SELECT A TWITTER EXCHANGE
While I’m done with
Next year promises drastic changes for all three of Twitter’s rivals: Bluesky plans to open itself to public records; Threads, on the other hand, is moving to support the unified “ActivityPub” protocol behind Mastodon; Having a Meta account or using a single Meta app. I would like to see a clear winner emerge from these advancements because I really don’t want to continue using all three platforms in 2024.
DECIDE TO CHANGE MINT
After years of neglect in which nothing changed in its Mint personal finance app, Intuit ended 2023 by surprising users with a much more serious change: a plan to shut down that service and switch them to a different personal finance app based on its Credit Karma service.