Choosing the Least Fragile: Goodbye Google

Why I Shifted to LibreOffice

For a long time, I chose the tools everyone else chose.

Google Docs. Microsoft Word. Cloud-first platforms wrapped in convenience, familiarity, and the promise of seamless collaboration. These tools were never presented as a choice, really — they were simply there, embedded into work, school, and daily life. To question them felt unnecessary, even inconvenient.

But over time, convenience began to feel less like a benefit and more like a dependency.

This shift wasn’t about chasing novelty or rejecting technology. It was about stepping back and asking a more foundational question:

Am I choosing what is popular, or what is resilient?

When Convenience Becomes a Methodology

Leaving the Google ecosystem wasn’t a single decision. It was a slow realization.

Google once operated under a simple, reassuring mantra: “Don’t be evil.” While informal, it signaled restraint — the idea that power should be handled carefully, that scale demanded responsibility.

But mottos are not architecture, and values do not survive indefinitely under pressure.

As Google grew, its methodology changed. Shareholders entered the equation. Engagement became measurable. Attention became a metric. Over time, the company’s center of gravity shifted — away from quietly supporting users and toward maximizing time-on-platform.

This wasn’t unique to Google, but Google refined it into a science.

The tools remained polished. The interfaces improved. The friction disappeared. But the underlying assumptions changed. The question was no longer “Does this help the user complete their task?” It became “Does this keep them here longer?”

A Cautionary Story About Good Intentions

This shift is explained with unsettling clarity in the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari.

In the book, Hari interviews Aza Raskin, the designer credited with inventing the concept of endless scroll. At the time, endless scroll seemed like a positive innovation — it reduced friction, eliminated unnecessary clicks, and made information easier to access. There was no malicious intent behind it.

Years later, Raskin came to deeply regret the idea.

As the long-term effects became clear, endless scroll revealed itself not as a neutral design choice, but as a powerful behavioral lever. It fragmented attention, removed natural stopping cues, and quietly trained users to stay longer than they intended.

Raskin went on to lead work in ethical design and became deeply involved in conversations about technology’s responsibility to human cognition and well-being. He has spoken openly about his time interacting with ethics efforts inside major tech companies, including Google.

One of the most sobering revelations was how frequently ethics recommendations were overridden — not because they were wrong, but because they conflicted with engagement metrics or shareholder interests. When ethical findings can be vetoed by revenue considerations, ethics becomes advisory at best.

Raskin no longer works at Google.

That matters.

Because it shows how systems can drift, even when individuals start with good intentions.

Why This Changed How I Evaluate Tools

This realization forced a shift in how I evaluate software.

I stopped asking:

• Which tool collaborates the fastest?

• Which platform integrates the most services?

• Which ecosystem is everyone already using?

And started asking:

• What assumptions does this tool make about my behavior?

• Does it require constant connectivity to function?

• Does it benefit from my attention lingering?

• Can it operate without observing me?

This is where LibreOffice entered the picture — not as a reactionary alternative, but as a fundamentally different model.

LibreOffice and the Value of Restraint

LibreOffice is not flashy. It does not try to be everything. It does not pull you into an ecosystem.

That absence is intentional.

LibreOffice is:

• A native desktop application

• Offline-first by default

• Free of embedded browser engines

• Free of always-on server components

• Free of account systems and telemetry

There is no login. No background synchronization. No engagement tracking.

It opens files. It edits them. It saves them. It closes.

From a security perspective, this restraint matters. A smaller attack surface means fewer failure modes. No embedded web engine means fewer inherited web vulnerabilities. No cloud dependency means fewer exposure points.

Security here is not achieved through promises or contracts — it is a consequence of architecture.

Open Source and Documented Transparency

Another critical factor was transparency.

LibreOffice has a long, documented history of:

• Public security advisories

• Open vulnerability disclosures

• Clear patch timelines

• Community review and governance

Vulnerabilities are not hidden or minimized. They are disclosed, discussed, and fixed in the open. This is not a weakness — it is a strength.

Security is not about never having flaws. It is about how flaws are handled when they are discovered.

In contrast, silence is often mistaken for safety. A quiet security record does not necessarily indicate fewer issues — it may simply reflect less scrutiny or less disclosure.

Compliance by Architecture, Not Contracts

GDPR and HIPAA compliance are often marketed as features, bundled into licensing tiers or enterprise agreements. But compliance achieved through paperwork is fragile.

LibreOffice supports compliance structurally:

• Data is processed locally

• Files remain under user control

• No forced cloud storage

• No background data transmission

• No third-party analytics

Compliance becomes a function of how files are stored and protected, not which vendor is paid. When compliance is enforced by architecture, it survives business model changes.

Long-Term Resilience Over Short-Term Convenience

This shift was never about finding the most popular replacement for Google Docs or Microsoft Word. It was about redefining what “better” actually means.

Resilient tools:

• Continue working offline

• Do not require external authorization

• Degrade gracefully

• Can be audited, forked, and preserved

• Do not disappear when pricing models change

Convenience is powerful, but it is fragile.Resilience is quiet, but it endures.

LibreOffice does not need my attention to function. It does not need to capture me, retain me, or analyze me. It simply works.

Final Thoughts

Choosing LibreOffice was not about nostalgia or ideology. It was about recognizing how systems shape outcomes — regardless of intent.

Google did not set out to harm users. Neither did the creator of endless scroll. But systems optimized for engagement inevitably drift away from human-centered outcomes.

In a world increasingly built to capture attention, choosing tools that leave it intact is a deliberate act.

Not the most popular.

Not the most connected.

But the least fragile.