Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

mikeayles wrote: post #3

In a similar vein, I would recommend watching Cory Doctorow's presentation at 39C3,a post american, enshittification-resistant internet. https://youtu.be/3C1Gnxhfok0?si=uKDlYn33IIYevj8p

You can also watch it at CCC directly: https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification...

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#5

Post by cmiles8 » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

“You told me these were the best engineers in the world!!”

“I said they were the best engineers in Canada”

(Great quote from the BlackBerry movie).

Rings true here. You can’t fight market forces. To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#6

Post by microtonal » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

It's only a small contribution, but last week we have ended our Dropbox subscription (12 * 20 Euro = 240 Euro) and moved our data to Proton Drive. We are also moving out photos out of Apple Photos (12 * 10 = 120 Euro per year for storage). And I have also moved my mail out of Fastmail (to Proton Mail), which is a nice Aussie company, but their main servers are hosted in the US, so too risky. We also just moved all our backups from Backblaze B2 to Hetzner + local (between me and my wife 12 * $15 = $180 per year). Besides moving to Proton and Hetzner, we are increasing donations to non-profits like Mastodon.

I encourage everyone outside the US and in particular Canada and Europe to move your data out of the US and away from US cloud companies now. Putting your data there is not safe anymore and can and will be used for blackmail (see Microsoft cutting access of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor's email). Trump is now blackmailing countries with tariffs to get them to back off support for Greenland (not going to happen), so things are going to get ugly.

If you are heavily into tech or an activist, etc. it's also a good time to pick up an extra phone like a second hand Pixel to run GrapheneOS as a backup. Or (less secure) a phone that can be unlocked and run something like /e/OS.

I know that it might take years to get all companies, governments, etc. off American big tech products. But that's not a good reason for not safeguarding your own data. Besides that, the more funding non-US alternatives get through enthusiasts, the better they are positioned to improve their alternatives.

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#7

Post by shimman » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #5

“You told me these were the best engineers in the world!!” “I said they were the best engineers in Canada” (Great quote from the BlackBerry movie). Rings true here. You can’t fight market forces. To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Is US tech even good anymore? Do none of us not encounter the massive amount of shit from companies like Google, MSFT, Apple, Amazon, etc as users? Truly terrible bugs or user flows from engineers that clearly don't care while everyone is just collecting their own share of blood.

I can't think of a single thing that big tech has done to improve my life, or society for that matter, over the last 10 years.

All US Tech has is the backing of the US government and that is likely to change in the coming decade, without the pressure of the US government would these companies be as competitive? We see what happens when others try to, rightfully I might add, regulate them: they throw extreme hissy fits and pressure the US government to force the countries to back off (by threat of sanctions or military action).

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#8

Post by FpUser » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #5

“You told me these were the best engineers in the world!!” “I said they were the best engineers in Canada” (Great quote from the BlackBerry movie). Rings true here. You can’t fight market forces. To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

No, you have to build something that can work reasonably well, get rid of being fucking dependency slave in strategic areas and then try to catch up. Of course does not work for small countries

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#9

Post by terminalshort » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #5

“You told me these were the best engineers in the world!!” “I said they were the best engineers in Canada” (Great quote from the BlackBerry movie). Rings true here. You can’t fight market forces. To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

You absolutely can fight market forces. China did it for decades with their car industry. Chinese people were financially forced to buy inferior Chinese cars to support a domestic industry until it learned to compete in the global market. Very difficult to do this in a democracy, though.

Re: Escaping the trap of US tech dependence

#10

Post by palmotea » Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

The easiest was of escaping the trap of US tech dependence, is to buy your tech from China. Everything they have is very advanced, and cheap to boot. Huawei instead of Apple, WeChat instead of WhatsApp, etc. Everyone wins except Trump.