It sounds like an intro to a new science fiction scenario but it is real.
A not technical book about programming I would suggest: https://themediocreprogrammer.com/what-is-the-mediocre-programmer.html#what-is-the-mediocre-programmer
Many of us have this kind of feeling. That's why there are: Small web, inidie web, Gemini... Without being extremist with noJS websites (even if it's not a bad idea), let's create content outside platforms. I hope a day blogs will come back and RSS reader became back a trend. So we'll take back control of a (small) part of the Internet.
Maybe it'll reveal that many websites doesn't want to give interesting news to its audience but only want them to watch ads to have more money.
David Revoy did some search on finding a cheap hardware to draw using opensource software: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article972/my-solution-for-mobile-digital-painting-on-gnu-linux
I have the same feeling than panos. I'm concerned by the Meta thing. But I'm more and more worry about Fediverse when I see people what instance admin should block or not. What is good or bad for the Fediverse. Maybe an idea to fight against big tech to take control over the fediverse could be to hard limit number of people on each instance. Let's say 5000 for example. It could promote smallest instances rather than the biggest. Because maybe the issue behind this huge instances in fediverse.
TTS with coqui xTTS is fun to run with a known voice (10sec wav file is enought). It requires some resources but far less than STT like faster-whisper. I think the main issue is not running them but integrate them with the OS/softwares.