Doctorow: "'Build it, they will come' is a trap." Leaving Big Tech / USA's Stack
12 hours ago
- #Adversarial Interoperability
- #Post-American Internet
- #Digital Sovereignty
- Trump's actions have spurred global efforts towards digital sovereignty, highlighting the risks of relying on US tech giants.
- The post-American internet requires open, transparent, and verifiable alternatives for administrative tools, telecoms, and embedded systems.
- Adversarial interoperability, once common, is now legally restricted, making it difficult to transition users from legacy platforms to new ones.
- Users stay on inferior platforms due to the collective action problem, valuing connections over platform quality.
- Condemning users of legacy platforms as morally defective hinders efforts to migrate them to better alternatives.
- Legal barriers, not technological ones, are the main obstacle to creating alt clients for legacy platforms.
- Trump's trade policies and actions against tech companies underscore the urgency of building a post-American internet.
- Fear of retaliation from Trump should not deter efforts to create better platforms, as his goal is dominance, not fairness.