Why AI Alternatives Matter
AI is prone to problems affecting its output: hallucinations, incompleteness, inconsistency, and bias. AI usage is costly, and the popular free services might require expensive paid plans or downgrade to sponsored light versions at any time.
Don't Hit Submit!
Ethical issues aside, lazily using AI to often and too early won't make you a better coder or more creative. And AI companies don't only take your money, they're also after your data – and your time!
Techniques like Rubber Duck Debugging (internal dialog development preparing questions and anticipating answers without actually asking anyone) are alternatives to AI for coding and creativity.
Don't Ask Suggestive Questions
If your question implies a certain answer, asking only makes sense for falsification. AI (and other people) will hopefully tell you when you're completely wrong. Only that AI often doesn't. Current models are trained for flattery and verbosity.
Don't Ask Why
What a waste of time! Try to ask open questions, and always prefer asking "how", not "why".
Stay Skeptical
Don't believe anything without a factful proof or a recent, reputable, relevant source.
GEO, the AI-agent-targeting variant of search engine optimization, already succeeded to gaslight AI and poison its answers with fake sources biased towards commercial results. AI seems much more gullible than real people.
Principle of Least Power
Remember the rule of least power: don't rent a truck when you need a mini van. Don't use AI when you need autocomplete, web search, or a tutorial!
I sketched a pyramid of thinking, creativity, and information retrieval again. As you can guess, AI assistants are "on top" as the most costly exception, while the broad basis should be traditional groundwork. Here's a cute AI-slop adaption:
Source: Hand-Crafted Creative Counter-Culture against Toxic Digitization
In practice, it's more complicated. What's "AI" and what isn't? I'm happy about "autocomplete on steroids", but I still don't trust agents to refactor my whole codebase.
I'm happy with AI-assisted image editing, but I'm tired of all the sloppy stuff taking the place of crafted screenshots collages or authentic photography.
List of Popular AI Providers (2026)
Focusing on privacy and local-first pragmatism, Ecosia and Mistral's Le Chat lead my top ten, although and because I'm aware that they might not be the smartest top-notch vanguards. But they don't have to. No need to let Americans or Chinese know what I'm working on, or what I'm going to tell my doctor, when modest models are smart enough.
- 127.0.0.1 (as local as it gets)
- Ecosia (AI and search engine) 🇩🇪
- Le Chat (IA) 🇫🇷 🐱
- Claude 🇺🇸
- ...
That's my subjective top three, not counting number zero, as I haven't set that up yet.
This list is subject to change, and yours will surely differ.
So, who am I?
I'm developing, designing and optimizing websites and (web) apps.
I have been doing this since 1997.
You can call me old.
What I'm not: I'm neither naive nor nostalgic, ...
... no luddite, no AI-denier, but ...
Do I sound like a grumpy patriot yelling at the sky?
What I'm really angry about and why? It's called
Enshittification
Pragmatism and capitalist logic make most companies eventually deteriorate their products on purpose until they are only slightly better than the second-best alternative, or just good enough not to lose all of their loyal customers and brand reputation.
Taking the cliché further, while Europe often stands in it's own way and stalls its administration in bureaucracy, China floods the world market with cheap plastic fashion, networking electronics, and surprisingly successful AI models (not in my top ten).
America, or more specifically, the United States, somehow still manage to defend their position as leading exporters of "premium" hardware, software, and culture. However, the premium becomes hollow because of the aforementioned enshittification.
You might say I'm just jealous of the Californian tech broligarchs. I mean, didn't Elon help popularize electric mobility? Isn't he the one who provides Starlink to Ukraine? Yes, he is. And H..... built the motorways. Just saying.
Long ago, Google dropped their former "don't be evil" motto.
Honestly, I often get the impression that "be evil" is what drives current tech stakeholders. And that's very bad. Are we human or are we lemmings actively creating a dystopian future?
You might say, I'm just too old to understand, that I'm just pessimistic because I'm too stupid to promt. You might say my perfectionism is just another nerdy hobby
Subjective List of Unpopular AI and Search Providers
- ChatGPT by OpenAI (see #quitgpt why)
- Gemini / Google AI mode (see #degoogle)
- Copilot / Microsoft Bing AI
- Perplexity (just another hallucinating American)
- Meta AI (just so that they will get mentioned, too)
- Grok (capable, but most unehtical)
In practice, I still use them. It's hard not to, when there is no major relevant search engine index yet besides Google and Microsoft's Bing, which are used by Ecosia and other alternative meta-search engines.
Constructive Criticism
After all, my series is called "constructive criticism" and maybe I shouldn't be so negative. Then again, someone must have their say and point out flaws and fallacies.
Further reading: see links in the text above.