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Introduction

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon… I think you should look back at what you have written in Tech sucks? Really? and reassess your thoughts. Your conclusion shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between technology, companies, and customers in my opinion.

Technology doesn’t suck. I think the problem is that we’ve allowed a handful of enormous companies become the gatekeepers to the extraordinary technology that many of us can’t imagine living without.

You can’t separate the company from the technology. The company produces the technology, directs how it is produced, directs what features it has, directs the terms under which it is offered. More and more the dictates of the corporation are: create technology that extracts the highest value from the customer. They don’t give a BLEEP about you, why should you give a BLEEP about them?

I’m honestly so disheartened any time I read or listen to someone who has given up. It’s something that I don’t like listening to or reading. It’s frustrating to the point where I want to reach out and shake the person by the shoulders and shout at them “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

But I know that won’t get us anywhere, so instead I arrange a bunch of pixels on the screen in the hopes to reach at least one person. Today, I hope that person is you.

Your Perspective Isn’t Invalid

Your perspective is held by a lot of people, and unfortunately while it is the prevailing perspective things are not likely to change. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. There is, but first you have to recognize the situation. So, I want to point out a few statements you made, and (hopefully) get you to see what you are saying:

The first problem I can see is that we increasingly don’t have that many meaningful choices,

My employer uses Microsoft, my family is mostly on Apple, my friends use WhatsApp,

And where exactly are you supposed to go? I acknowledge that Apple has problems, but so does Google. Microsoft has problems, Amazon has problems, Meta has problems.

Do you see the problem with these statements? No, let me offer some more quotes:

I didn’t have anywhere else to go. …and no support network.

…isolated me from friends and family…

I kept believing his promises to change.

These are just a few (admittedly isolated in context) quotes from abuse survivors about why they didn’t leave their abusers sooner.1

The fact is, the way many are looking at technology is from a state of denial. They accept the abuse of large corporations without questioning it because it’s better to get a long to get a long. It’s only when the abuse is recognized that true change can begin.

The EU has started to recognize the abuses of Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and many other corporations. Recognizing the abuse has kick-started a movement for Digital Sovereignty. Isn’t that a wake-up call to recognize the abuse of Big Tech companies? Isn’t that enough to take the first step? (I know the Digital Sovereignty movement started more because of political tailwinds, but those motivators are still useful in taking personal recognition of the relationship.)

Sorry, I am intense on this topic. It’s difficult to get through to people, to really make them understand how they need to see the relationship between themselves and technology companies.

It Doesn’t Matter

Another quote in your piece:

I’m not even sure, at the scale Big Tech works at, what number it would take for them to notice? At what number would our “vote” start to move the needle?

That’s irrelevant. No. Literally. It is irrelevant.

Look at what’s happening in Clacton right now. Do you think Count Binface is actually going to win the By Election? I don’t think so. But does someone voting for him mean that it won’t get noticed? It will. Especially if enough people vote for him as a vote against Nigel Farage.

The joke in the Linux community has been “This is the year of the Linux desktop.” It’s a joke that has been running for decades. Only, guess what? In that time Linux became the dominant operating system: it powers most of the internet, it’s embedded in many devices you use. It’s in so many systems you probably don’t realize how often you are interacting with a Linux system.

And now: people are migrating away from Windows because they are tired of Microslop’s AI horse manure. To make things more interesting, more people are getting exposed to Linux via Valve’s Steam Deck and new desktop devices. Large tech channels on YouTube like Linus Tech Tips have run challenges to see if Linux is good enough to switch to (spoilers, it’s really close).

Slow and steady wins the race. If people start switching one-by-one there will be a line that is crossed eventually. But, by the time the line is crossed, most of these big corporations won’t be able to respond. They will realize they have to pivot, concede, or go bust.

Nope, the Conflation Is Necessary

To quote you again:

But technology companies can, and do, suck.

Too often we seem to conflate those two ideas. Technology itself is extraordinary,

No, the problem isn’t technology. It’s what happens when enormously powerful companies discover they can turn useful technology into an ecosystem designed to extract as much money, attention and data from us as possible. We shouldn’t confuse the thing with the business model wrapped around it.

I see that you don’t want to admit to the relationship between technology and technology companies. But here’s the thing: the two are (mostly) inseparable. As I stated above:

You can’t separate the company from the technology. The company produces the technology, directs how it is produced, directs what features it has, directs the terms under which it is offered.

This goes back to the abusive relationship mentality I went off about earlier. Victims will often excuse their abusers' behavior by stating that the abuser is a good person. They only want the abusive behavior to change. Eventually they come to understand that separating the behavior and the person is not possible.

In this case you are trying to separate the technology from company. But, except for many open source projects, the technology is the company and the company is the technology.

Don’t Confuse the Big Tech for the Bro’s

It’s probably worth linking to this piece here too. Given Big Tech gets a lot of focus it’s probably good to remember that Big Tech isn’t really a thing, but Broligarchs sure are.

This is an attempt at differentiation without a basis. Let me explain.

The Broligarchy is the people: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, etc. The thing that puts them into the same group is that they are charismatic egotists. They believe that everyone agrees with their beliefs, no matter how messed up it is.

The point here is that Broligarchy is about the qualitative aspects of these people.

Big Tech is a reflection of the power of the companies in terms of market share, market capitalization, perceived financial value, stock dividends, etc. This is the quantitative values verging on the concept of monopoly.

Yes, it is extremely dangerous that we have egotistical people with extreme views in charge of the financially dominant companies. But, the two things are different concepts that shouldn’t be conflated. How can I say that? This list of CEO from some of the biggest companies in tech at various levels (just off the top of my head):

You may not have heard of BOE and TCL, but they are two of the largest LCD panel makers in the world, right behind Samsung. And, of course, Samsung has a huge percentage of the cellphone market. Intel and AMD are two of the primary x86 CPU manufacturers in the world.

This should make it clear that the idea that the Broligarchy and Big Tech aren’t necessarily related. All these companies I listed are part of Big Tech, and yet they aren’t headed by Broligarchs.

Changing for Good

Change is hard, especially when in an abusive relationship this massive. Getting out of it can be one of the hardest struggles one goes through in life. It won’t happen all at once, but it can happen one step at a time.

While it may be true that one person turning away from one company doesn’t register. But, you aren’t alone, others are trying to find their way out. I started on that journey decades ago, and I am still on it.

The best you can do is recognize when a piece of technology is toxic or abusive, and start looking for the way out. You can make a list of all the things you want drop, find alternatives, and figure out what’s blocking you from making the change. From there you can start working on how to make a change.

This is something I’ve been doing for years, right now I’m working on Android. I’ve looked at a couple of alternatives, and have an idea of the one I want to use, but it currently doesn’t list my phone as compatible. (However, I suspect my SKU is actually the same as one of the SKUs they do list. When I have time I will image my phone, and try it.)

Don’t get too lost in the weeds when it comes to the Egotistical Broligarchy versus Big tech stuff. You need to recognize when the relationship with technology is abusive and make plans to get out from under it.

  1. 20 Survivors Explain Why Leaving an Abusive Partner Isn’t as Simple as It Seems, from Shadows of Control. ↩︎