Imagine there is no YT, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Netflix, no Amazon, no Apple, no Google to to search the Web, no chatGPT. Imagine there is no TikTok either (even though it’s not US). Just imagine there is no ‘giant’ tech from anywhere owning any app or service that millions if not billions of people are willing to use.

A world without any of those giant (US) tech companies and services that many of us take for granted.

In that world, what would you use the Internet for? How would you use it? And how much time do you think you would spend online, compared to now?

(my own answer in the comments)

  • Libb@piefed.socialOPEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    Of course, that last bit is changing (which is part of why you’re asking the question, no doubt).

    maybe? :)

    And that’s the answer to your question. If those services go away, they will be replaced by something else.

    I would be tempted to agree (while also recognizing a minority (like myself) would try to steer away from anything remotely looking like a clone of those ‘original models’ and rekindle the interest for a smaller more fragmented Web) but, at the same time, suffice to see how that less-democratic USA we now have to live with is dealing with anything that even remotely looks like a threat: invading a country, taxing it do death (unless they withdraw any law deemed unfair for US businesses),… I doubt those USA would allow any serious alternative to grow and to reach a large enough audience… But then, in my first hypothesis and for some mysterious reason we would already have lost access to US tech/services, and therefore one may conclude that at the same time USA would have lost access to us as a potential market and wouldn’t have any leverage against our own attempts, well, maybe? ;)

    but nothing lasts forever.

    Not even empires, or wannabe new empires. But isn’t it what history is all about: failed dreams of grandeur?

    edit: typos.