I hate computer. You hate computer. We all hate computer.
More specifically modern subscription-based, or “Free” (definitely not data harvesting) tools made available almost exclusively, but i digress
Whether it be a website, cloud service, social app or horrifically specific tool, particularly the sort a business, school or university forced upon you. Whichever it is. In your heart, you hate them. Even if you’ve deluded yourself into loving them. You don’t. You just can’t live without them. There is a difference.
This is both the pickle and the proverbial rock staring us down from opposite the hard place.
“This”, includes but is by no means limited to everything from Instagram, to Docs, Notion, YouTube, the Office suite (and even “AI” to an extent, not that we should be calling it that) and all such similar tools and the like. In some way you will have used one of them, or something like them at some point, as they provided something that in some way you “NEEDED”, or were required to engage with, and they provided that special something in such a way that you became both accustomed to, and completely and utterly locked into them. That is the end goal, and one could argue it always has been.
The reality is that software, tools, apps, and things meant to help you do or experience a thing, (no matter how much effort goes into their modern user experience), are not made primarily to be useful for “you” anymore, and they haven’t been for some time. I say this in the most literal sense, as outwith the independent development space, everything is from the outset made to be acquired, to require a constant connection, to be consumed thoughtlessly or to continue to extract all there is from you to extract until nothing remains. While this issue is obviously at the forefront of the modern world at large, particularly regarding the climate, resources, and our infinitely commercialised society in general, there is a parallel trouble infecting software. Except in software, that trouble is of course one which hungers for one resource alone, data. Even paid tools and services want your data now because one can’t exist without giving up something nowadays, and you (we) give it up “willingly”, for there are things you must do, and only through the computer can you do them.
To an extent it’s not really willing, and you no longer really have a choice in the matter, as in order to survive, you must engage in society, and to engage in society is to engage in technology. And technology is now by both design, and by capitalistic necessity, infinitely extractive (via money, data, or both), while also unfortunately being genuinely useful and easy to use, and to such a degree that trying to use an alternative is often a drag on your ability to engage with the world. Particularly as the alternatives are built like the sterile digital equivalent of being physically trapped in a millennial grey cube house, where yes it technically has six sides, but there is a prettier one right next to it with rounded corners, that both looks more fun and has a name with a vowel missing painted on the letterbox. And all it asks of you in exchange for a home, is a sign up to start. Free of charge of course. Until you’ve gotten used to the pretty cube and put you’re whole life inside it that is. And then all of a sudden, outside the windows all the other cubes have vanished, and your front door has been stolen and replaced with a paywalled subscription-based dog flap that you’re just slightly too large to squeeze through.
Now I’ve used and tried most apps and tools as a student and artist for anything and everything from dissertations to CVs, game design plans and half-finished novels. If you’re paying a monstrous subscription which always goes up in price, or willing to give up the aforementioned “data” in exchange for the “free” tool, they do the job… mostly.
But, anyone and everyone who has tried to create anything serious knows that to do “real” things, you will be tied to a desk (using one of the pretty tools), or at the very least tied to a laptop that you have to cart about and then sit atop one, because we have gotten to the point where there simply aren’t many viable options made natively that don’t feel awful to use. And even the pretty ones are ever so slowly becoming enshitified by the day to the point that even they don’t do what you need.
I wanted to have a go at changing that, or at the very least maybe provide another option for those that still want to maintain some semblance of quality of life to the act of creation, and modern existence without having to give up both data and privacy at the same time. And so I have.
Thingway is ‘a thing, thingie or if you’re feeling very Scottish, a hingway that you want to describe, but just can’t seem to find the word for in the moment’
Thingway is also the name of the offline, tap-focused, writing and story authoring tool I’ve been putting together over the past year and a half in Scotland, and I’ll be entering it into Shipatons 2026 competition this year, so if you fancy trying something new when its out, please do take a peek on the Play Store!
Or at the link below if you’re nosy or can’t wait.
The Scottish authoring app, designed for the freedom to change your mind.
It’s got a little bit of everything, including pretty themes, an integrated planning space, and full drag-and-drop UI between it and the editor (even structured, non-destructive citations with automatic bibliographies), because I myself, as a mature student, need a little bit of everything, and neither Docs nor Word on mobile are cutting it these days for someone who just doesn’t want to fucking sit behind a laptop at a bloody desk anymore.
And yes, it’ll be free to use on your phone– actually free for the things you actually need to do. It doesn’t require your data, nor for you to connect to the internet after downloading, nor need a traditional account just to use it way, because fortunately for you, I hate computer.
