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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replace-amazon-google-x-meta-apple-alternatives>
"There’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid
at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and
misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes
on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to
the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts –
and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we
get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow
describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become
less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to
them.
We’ve entered into a Faustian pact with these companies: “While it’s brilliant
to have access to high-quality products and software, very often for ‘free’,
it’s important to remember that there is a trade-off involved – often of our
personal data and privacy,” says Lisa Barber, tech editor at
Which? We give
these companies our attention and our information, which they then turn into
big bucks and apparently unassailable monopolies.
But the good news is we can go elsewhere. The rest of the world is weighing up
its reliance on US technologies, and in Europe especially we’re realising there
are better alternatives to just about everything big tech is shilling, if by
“better” we mean greener, more ethical, more independent, more respectful of
your privacy or simply less disturbingly, monolithically powerful. Making the
switch is easier than you might imagine. Here are a few pointers."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
