TROM Search (searxng), and Translate (lingva) are trade-free (TF) interfaces for trade-based services. And they may or may not work. Now we make sure people understand that:

We have removed TROM Bird (nitter - a Twitter TF interface) because for one it rarely worked since the billionaire introduced new rules, and second we do not see it relevant. We have the Fediverse where anyone can join for free.

Bibliogram (TF for Instagram), Teddit (TF interface for Reddit), and Invidious (TF for Youtube) were also removed in the past, because they either didn't work at all, or it was nearly impossible to keep them functional.

All of these TF interfaces are either a pain to develop, deploy and maintain, or they do not work anymore. Our server IP is getting limited or blocked by these big companies, so it is not a good idea to try and host them. Simply put these companies want for people to use their platforms to see ads and collect their data, or sell shit to them. If you still use them, then you should considering ditching them!

In the end these are not alternatives to trade-based services, they are interfaces for these services. So for example we rely on Friendica instead of Facebook, because Friendica is a true alternative. A different social network! Same when we rely on Peertube instead of Youtube. Or Nextcloud instead of Google Drive, and so forth. These and more, are the true services that we provide via trom.tf/ !

Yes, most videos are on Youtube and it will take a long time until we could match that on Peertube, so for now keep calm and use FreeTube (local TF interface for Youtube), and keep on posting on Peertube!

Yes Reddit has a lot of interesting content. So use an ad and tracker blocker! And give Lemmy a try!

In the near future we will replace the TROM Translate with a proper Translation engine that we run on our server. As for a search engine it is damn tricky....we do not know what alternative there is.

And please consider supporting us here tromsite.com/donate/ so that we keep on providing real Trade Free alternatives to what has become a cancer of the Internet world: Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like.

#tromlive

Hey people,

On the 26th of August, in less than 2 weeks, I (Tio) will go to Prague for the last ZDay event. ZDay, or Zeitgeist Day, is a global yearly event organized by the Zeitgeist Movement (TZM). It is meant to invite people from all around the world to present similar ideas to those that Zeitgeist stands behind. TROM started soon after the Zeitgeist Movement sparked into existence as the activism arm of The Venus Project. Our views are very similar and we are heading towards the same direction.

TZM will stop organizing these ZDay events because it tries to decentralize itself. So this will be the last ZDay, therefore I thought it would be a shame to never have participated in this event, so I contacted the organizers and asked if I can come. They were very familiar with TROM and happy to have me there. We've just released a new documentary so this is a perfect timing for such a presentation.

The event will be in Prague at the Spojka Karlín Events on 26th this month. It will start on 12:00 and end at 18:00. There will be 6 speakers in total. 4 will do their presentations in Czech and 2 in English (one of them is me). This is the official website for the event zeitgeistmovement.cz/2023/07/1…

All of the presentations will be translated live via personal headphones that the audience can wear. The event can host up to 120 people and over 50 seats are already booked. In order to participate you have to book here cloud.tzm.community/apps/forms…

It does not cost money to participate.

My talk will be called "How to Grow a Saner Society. A Lifetime Adventure." and I will try to keep it more positive. I will talk about our trade-free approach, the TROM.tf project, and a lot more. But I will try to put it all in a new unique perspective. The talk will be 30-40 minutes long and it will be recorded. We will upload it to our Peertube whenever it will be available.

This is a first for me, so let's see how it goes. If you want to meet up, please come to the Prague event if you can! 5 of us from TROM will be there including Roma, Aaron, Vicky and Rafa.

#tromlive

Just bashing the billionaires and big corporations, is shortsighted.

People think that Musk, Bezos, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on are now the "evil" that we should stand against and defeat. In truth these entities are no different from most humans living on this planet and most companies. It is just that some are bigger players, some are smaller.

When Bezos launched his small business in the early 1990 he was praised for making books available for more people.

But look at where he is now with Amazon.com.

We are all forced to be scammers, liars, fake, corrupted. Do you think there is any difference between Musk and Bezos buying other companies to gain influence or to shut down the competitors, and smaller companies temporarily lowering the prices or bribing the local politicians to gain more of the same? There isn't. The practice is 100% the same.

"Regulating" Facebook, Amazon, Google and the like it's like plastic recycling. You give the false impression that it works, and you continue to do this, while more plastic is being wasted than ever before, and more billionaires and corrupted people are being created than ever before.

Unless we calm down and dedicate some time to understand that these problems (corporations, climate change, corruption, influence, billionaires, etc.) are HUMANS, and human behavior comes from the ENVIRONMENT, and the environment is that of TRADING, unless we understand that, nothing will ever change. Period.

You can chop the heads of Musk and Bezos, you can destroy Google, Amazon and Facebook, and then realize that absolutely nothing has changed. New billionaires and new monopolistic corporations will evolve out of the same trade-environment.

What can we do?

Provide humans with at least their basic needs as trade-free.

Humans NEED to have access to a decent life, without having to trade anything in return for this. We need calm, relaxed, and educated humans, in order to do anything more than that. There are no plants growing out of a soil that has no nutrients, moisture, and such conditions.

We need to make people understand that life is not about consuming more shit, but about enjoying the nature, discover, learn, explore. We need to make companies and billionaires obsolete. Because what Google and the like fear the most is not the competition (because they can buy that), but becoming irrelevant. When people do not see any value in what they "sell", in what they "do".

If only there was a documentary explaining all of these in great detail....

#tromlive

We need 200 people to support TROM forever. And they only have to give us 2 cups of coffee a month. See this - tromsite.com/donate/

Listen, for more than a decade we have created a lot of materials and tools. On the Donate page you can scroll through a summary of that. There is 1 human working full time for TROM (me, Tio), and we have 2 servers plus some 5TB of online backups. Unfortunately the servers and TIo need money to survive.

The goal is to find only 200 people who can donate 5 Euros a month. This is a very reasonable goal and it will make TROM fully sustainable, forever.

Think about it: everyone will contribute equally and a very small amount. And I also won't get rich. I want to keep TROM humble, real, genuine, and to make sure that those who support it are many and do the least amount of effort.

I have a dream....and my dream, if I were to keep it realistic and down to Earth, is to (for now) achieve the "200 or TROM" goal. Because if I achieve that, then I can continue to create new things for the project, and to reach more people. In time maybe something bigger will spark.

But....if I cannot achieve this, I am going to fade away, little by little, forced to trade myself in this society and TROM will become irrelevant, and in a few years time hard to maintain. I have seen many similar organizations fading away and it is very sad to me.

The truth is that the only reason TROM is alive is because I had the motivation and financial support to continue. But for the past years the financial support has dropped so much that I can barely pay for the servers and I have no means to support myself other than doing some webdesign work for others. And that too is no more than 200 Euros a month.

This new donation approach will be the only one I will try. I am sick and tired of asking for support, so I put all of the eggs into that basket. And I will push this until I either manage to find 200 humans who are willing to give 2 cups of coffee a month to support the so many projects that we are doing, or I will fail while trying.

You know for the past 3 years I worked on the TROM II documentary. A new project basically. So I wonder what new projects I will do in the future. I started to write a book about The Internet and I think it is a unique overview of this complex subject. I then thought what if instead I would start a new video series and pick apart such complex subjects.... I then talked to Roma and Roko and others about it....what if we collaborate and make something cool together? I do not lack ideas or motivation, I lack money. And for that matter, not a lot. I need the bare minimum to have a life and nothing more.

Ok folks, let's see how this goes. 200 people is not a crazy number. There are hundreds, if not thousands who enjoy the TROM content or use our services, daily.

Let's see how many of them can and are willing to help.

#tromlive