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author: Dirk Slater

What Do We Want? To Stop Using Google Docs.

When do we want it? TBH, it's complicated.

What Do We Want? To Stop Using Google Docs.
Photo by Melody Zimmerman / Unsplash

By Dirk Slater, founder and CEO of FabRiders with input from the RABT Coalition

For many social change movements, Google Docs and Microsoft 365 have quietly become the backbone of how we organize, write, and remember together—and that’s the problem. The “Sharing Documents” webinar hosted by Rise Against Big Tech on December 9th, 2025, brought together organizers, tech co‑ops, and frontline groups seeking to move to people‑controlled tools and highlighted both the depth of dependence on corporate suites and the very real pathways out.

Living in the Google Building

Across breakout groups, participants described a remarkably similar workflow: someone creates a shared document (usually in Google Docs), sets commenting or editing permissions, shares a link, troubleshoots access, collects suggestions and comments, then tidies and shares a final version. These flows span everything from weekly community meetings to cross‑country coalitions of 50+ organizations coordinating campaigns, sign‑ups, and shared FAQs. Even where people use a mix of tools—MS Office and SharePoint, Dropbox, Riseup pads, Etherpad, CryptPad, Nextcloud, Notion—Google Docs and Drive function as the “filing cabinet” and fall‑back because search, storage and familiarity are so strong.

This reliance isn’t just about features; it’s about expectations shaped over a decade. Participants noted how normal it now feels to have dozens of people editing the same document in real time, with near‑perfect syncing, beautiful forms and frictionless sharing—capabilities that are expensive and complex to reproduce outside giant platforms. At the same time, people were clear about the risks: surveillance and police access, corporate control over movement data, lock‑in, and growing worries that documents created by people doing organizing work are being swept into big tech’s AI systems.

Climate Justice Alliance’s Move to Nextcloud

The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) presentation offered a concrete example of what it looks like for a large, well‑resourced organization to attempt an exit. CJA has around 40 staff and roughly 100 member organizations in the US. Like many organizations, they have struggled to avoid documents being filed in multiple ways by dozens of staff and now face the dual challenge of cleaning up and moving out. After starting migration planning in March, they have already migrated mail, contacts, and calendars and are now preparing a full Google Drive migration to a self‑hosted Nextcloud instance.

Their core needs will sound familiar to many: owning their data, eliminating built‑in surveillance and platform lock‑in, and having strong admin controls over sharing permissions for staff, teams, members, external partners and HR. They also need reliable real‑time collaborative editing (documents, spreadsheets, presentations) with version history, and a setup built on open‑source software, backed by a movement‑aligned service provider and a robust backup plan. After evaluating a mix of tools—Riseup, CryptPad, Proton Drive—they chose a Nextcloud‑based stack with Collabora for collaborative documents, hosted and supported by Cloud68, Mailbox.org for email, and Keycloak for identity management.

House, Not Apartment: The Migration Analogy

One of the most powerful contributions was an analogy that resonated across the room: moving from Google to self‑hosted tools is like moving from a fancy apartment building into your own starter house. In the “Google building,” the rent includes everything: electricity, water, Wi-Fi, landscaping, repairs, and maintenance. You may not love the landlord, but the doors open, the lifts work, and the hot tub is always warm. By contrast, the Nextcloud “house” is something movements own; it has the spaces we need, and in some areas it’s safer and better (for example, the “locks” work the way we want), but not every amenity we grew used to is there from day one.

The second layer of the analogy points to what’s usually invisible: when organizations move into their own house, they must arrange hosting, backups, upgrades, monitoring, identity management, and support themselves, or pay movement‑aligned providers to do it. That means new line items in budgets: migration labour (for example, a staffer or firm spending a month moving 40 users), hosting and support contracts, and time for training and documentation. The conversation made clear that “free” corporate suites have always been an illusion. They have been paid for with data, dependency and risk—and building our own infrastructure will continue to cost real money and collective effort.

Where Alternatives Work—and Where They Crack

The breakouts demonstrated that movements are already using a rich ecosystem of tools, each with strengths and sharp edges. Riseup pads and Etherpad work well for quick, low‑barrier notes and agendas; MayFirst‑hosted Nextcloud offers groupware, file sharing and office documents; CryptPad provides encrypted collaborative documents and forms; Proton offers email and documents; and others are experimenting with BookStack for documentation and Nocodb as an open‑source Airtable alternative.

Yet nearly every group reported frustrations that push people back toward Google or Microsoft:

  • CryptPad links and passwords get lost; forms can be confusing; mobile support is weak; outages damage trust.
  • Nextcloud’s office tools can be buggy or slow with many collaborators; default link expirations cause documents to “disappear” unless settings are adjusted; external collaborators often struggle with the unfamiliar interface.
  • Nextcloud spreadsheets lack some interaction patterns (such as easy row-dragging and reordering), which is a deal‑breaker for use cases like marketing lead tracking.
  • Google Forms’ polished look and simplicity remain a significant barrier to switching; alternatives like CryptPad forms, Dropform, and LibreForms often feel less “pretty” or less intuitive to non‑tech users.

At the same time, people are finding workarounds and partial transitions: storing files in Nextcloud while continuing to draft in Google Docs, using Nextcloud Collectives to edit markdown instead of heavyweight office formats, or reserving Proton or Riseup pads for more sensitive work while leaving low‑risk material on corporate platforms.

The Hardest Part: People, Not Platforms

Over and over, participants emphasised that the core challenge is social and political, not just technical. Many are working with volunteers and staff who have limited digital literacy, or who are already overwhelmed by fascism, repression and daily survival; even when they understand the dangers of big tech, they lack the capacity or motivation to learn new tools. Tech trauma plays a role: some anti‑ICE volunteers, for example, are comfortable using Signal but avoid Proton Drive, not because they disagree with the politics but because change feels like another threat in an already threatening environment.

Groups named the importance of liberatory change‑management strategies: slowing down urgency, treating migration as a collective process rather than a top‑down switch, and cultivating “champions” who can support peers in adopting new platforms. There was also a strong push to reduce dependency on a single “tech person” by building shared ownership: meticulous documentation of how systems work, cross‑training within organizations, and seeing tech skills as part of movement infrastructure rather than an individual’s side‑hustle.

Equity and Accessibility: Low‑Resource Users in Focus

Another persistent theme was accessibility for users of older phones, low‑bandwidth connections, or basic Android devices. Several participants work with communities that access tools only via mobile, and they stressed that any alternative must perform at least as well as Google on these devices to succeed. When CryptPad or Nextcloud struggle on mobile—slow loading, layout problems, or confusing login flows—organizers pay the political cost, while Google gets the credit for “just working.”

This led to a deeper question about how usability and accessibility relate to the values of tools and services. Some noted that, in many community‑run projects, principles and politics are rightly centred, but design, interface, and user‑experience work are under‑resourced, which can undermine accessibility and adoption. Others pointed out that bugginess is not a sign that these tools are inherently worse, but often a direct consequence of chronic under‑funding; without sustained investment, it is difficult to match the polish of multi‑billion‑dollar platforms.

Funding, Knowledge and Migration Support

If movements are going to move into the “Nextcloud house” at scale, they will need money, maps and guides. Multiple groups asked very practical questions: How much does it cost, roughly, to migrate a mid‑sized organization? What are the ongoing per‑person costs for hosting and support? Has anyone successfully secured grant funding for this, and what did they request? Others wondered where to go if you cannot self‑host like CJA and do not have in‑house tech capacity: how do you choose among movement‑aligned providers, and who helps you compare options?

Participants suggested that the ecosystem needs:

  • A shared, regularly updated knowledge base of movement‑aligned hosts and tools, with clear descriptions of services, costs, strengths and limitations.
  • Model migration budgets and timelines—for example, what “one month for 40 users” really entails in terms of labor, training and downtime.
  • Guidance and tools to streamline migration: import/export scripts, checklists for permissions and folder structures, and protocols to keep organizations operational while moving years of data.

Underneath all of this is a broader economic question: if community‑controlled infrastructure is essential to resisting tech monopolies, how do we fund it collectively so that co‑ops and small providers can offer reliable, well‑supported services without over‑burdening already stretched movements?

Questions We Still Need to Answer

The webinar closed not with neat conclusions but with a powerful set of questions that Internet Exchange readers may recognize from their own organizing. Breakout groups asked:

  • If most people just want a Google Docs clone, how do we fund and govern it, and who covers the real costs of migration and maintenance?
  • How can we best counter the desire for convenience and shine a light on the politics of “free” without sliding into fear‑mongering or shame?
  • What are effective, liberatory methods for encouraging resistant individuals to make the transition—especially when they already understand the risks of big tech?
  • How do we build trust in alternative platforms when outages and bugs are inevitable, and ensure that blame doesn’t fall on the one brave person who suggested CryptPad or Nextcloud?
  • How do accessibility and usability intersect with the values and interoperability of tools, and what would it take to center design justice in our tech stacks as much as we centre software freedom?

Perhaps the most honest question came from a group wrestling with expectations: do we have to “settle for less” when we move to local, open tools—or do we have to settle in, invest, and build up the house we actually own together? The conversations in this workshop suggest that the answer will not come from a single platform, but from a shared commitment to fund, govern and care for the infrastructure that can carry our struggles for the long haul.

Join the movement:


 For resources and support for your organization, visit https://riseagainstbig.tech, then join the movement to make technology a tool for liberation and justice, not private profit:

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