The IndieWeb Atlas
Anticonsumerism Resources
The links on this page are all about reducing the strain on your bank account. Originally it was a nice little list of free resources around the internet, but now this page has 3 subsections, software, hardware, secondhand goods, gift-economy networks, DIY instructions... and it just keeps growing! This has quickly become the largest section of this website!
In any case, it turns out there are a lot of people dedicated to keeping perfectly good stuff out of landfills while also sticking it to big corporations that have embraced licensing over ownership, planned obsolescence, and general eshittification.
There's way more out there for this sort of thing, from global to national to local. Don't forget good old dumpster diving!
Contents: Resources & Things, DIY, Software & Browser Tools
Resources & Things
Home to the Wayback Machine, which allows you to see snapshots of websites as they were in the past. Also home to a truly incredible media library, full of books, images, newspaper clippings, videos, music, and more.
Connect with other people in your community and those nearby to request and offer free goods.
Similar to Freecycle, you can find (or give away) free things within your local community.
Based in the US, this store collects old industrial parts, construction materials, and other doodads and sells them in an effort to keep them out of landfills. We've seen everthing from streetsweeper brushes to highway guardrails to wine barrels to a 55-gallon drum of passionfruit extract. If you're looking for an unusual material for a project, you might find it here.
The classic, the original. Basically a digital posterboard advertising all sorts of things in your local community. A great way to get used things from people nearby, and often brimming with the strange and offbeat. I've sometimes thought I could build a house for a free just using things I found on Craigslist.
A large collection of Royalty-Free music that's been around for a while. Recently they let you filter out AI-genereated music! Well, as best as any of these filters can - but I truly appreciate the attempt. Just click the "Content Type" filter and choose "authentic only." I've used music from here for several projects in the past few years.
Library of free eBooks.
Free stock photos.
Free stock photos.
Not anticonsumerist, per se, but a collection of sprites, images, and 3d models that you can use for free in your videogames. Since stock photos and royalty free music are also in this section, it seemed the right place to put it.
Library of public domain audiobooks.
Free online courses, movies, audiobooks, and more. Warning: Last we checked, some links on this website were out of date.
A great collection of public-domain sheet music.
Over 700 thousand free sound effects, which can be filitered by the license for use.
3D models of human poses for artistic reference. You can even rotate them and change the lighting.
DIY
Thousands of instructions for making all sorts of things, from the purely fun and decorative to weather stations and other useful apparatuses.
Open-source designs for physical objects, many (most?) of which are ready for 3d printing.
Open-source modular house designs and workshops. Super cool idea.
Open-source designs for industrial and agricultural machines. Super duper cool idea.
List of Open-Source Hardware Projects
Wikipedia at it again with a huge list of open-source hardware for you to peruse. Phones, cars, medical devices, houses... really, take a look and see.
A right-to-repair community that comes with free guides to repairing everything from phones to fridges to cars. If you're unfamiliar with right to repair... well, they have a manifesto on the website, and you can also check out the Wikipedia article on the general idea.
Software & Browser Tools
Find free, open-source alternatives for paid software.
An open-source alternative to Discord and Slack. There's a free version and two paid tiers.
List of Free and Open Source Software Packages
An extremely useful list from Wikipedia of free, open-source software. The list is huge!
In-browser photoshop alternative.
Professional-quality video editing software... and it's free! There is a paid version but the free does everything I need and more.
Free, high-quality audio recording and editing software. I've used this for everything from mixing music to editing podcasts to recording voice acting auditions.
Free, open-source CAD software. Does everything you need 2D CAD software to do, but without the horrendous price tag of AutoDesk.
QGIS is a really nice digital mapping program. Great functionality, none of the price tag of ArcGIS. I've used this in some personal projects and I really like the way it handles.
How to describe Obsidian? It's like a personal wikipedia, a map of connections between knowledge, and incredible note-taking device. Obsidian is great for anything from plotting a novel to taking notes for D&D to finishing your PhD. I used it in my personal and professional life all the time, and I cannot talk it up enough.
Blender is a free, open-source 3D modeling program and an industry standard for video games. A lot of cool animations you'll find online use Blender, too! It's not the most intuitive modeling program you'll ever use but tutorials are free and abundant across the internet.
A free, open-source interior-design modeler that simultaneously updates a floorplan and a 3d model. Desktop, mobile, and in-browser versions are all available.
The successor to OpenOffice, LibreOffice is a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.
A collection of free, digital tools. Seems to be aimed at the serious computer nerd (as opposed to casual computer nerds, like me), but worth a look regardless of your skill level.
A collection of online tools. Seems to be aimed at web devs, but has a good selection of little gizmos that might be useful to anyone.