Read more about How to fight against big tech’s power, break out of the stranglehold on Business Standard. Expect the tech titans to be grilled over whether their companies have become so powerful and far-reaching that they harm rivals and all of us, too
In the morning, you check email. At noon, you browse social media and message friends. In the evening, you listen to music while shopping online. Around bedtime, you curl up with an e-book.
For all of those activities, you probably used a product made or sold by Google, Amazon, Apple or Facebook. There’s no simple way to avoid those Big Four. Even if you subscribed to Spotify, you would probably still be using a Google Android phone, an Amazon speaker or an Apple iPhone to stream the music. Even if you deleted Facebook, you might still be using the Facebook-owned Instagram or WhatsApp.
Being beholden to a small set of companies that touch every corner of our digital lives is precisely why lawmakers have summoned the chief executives of Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple to testify in an antitrust hearing on Wednesday. Expect the tech titans to be grilled over whether their companies have become so powerful and far-reaching that they harm rivals and all of us, too.
So what can we do if we want to break out of the stranglehold of Big Tech?
At first glance, there may not seem like much we can do to escape. “It’s not like you can start shopping at local bookstores and put Amazon out of business,” said Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamp, a Chicago-based company that offers productivity apps.
But the more I thought about this, the more I realized that there were some steps that we could take to better support tech’s little guys, too. We would do ourselves and smaller businesses a favor by staying informed on alternatives, for one. We could change our consumption patterns so that we were not just buying new products from the tech giants. And we could show our support for indie developers who make the apps we love.
As Mr. Fried put it, “We can do things to change our own conscience.” Here’s how.
Step One to becoming a more conscientious consumer is doing some research.
While Google Chrome may be the most popular web browser, there are alternatives that collect less data about us. And while all of our friends are on Facebook, there are also smaller apps or methods we can use to stay connected with them. The key is to read news sites and tech blogs to learn about options.
