Leaving Big Tech
Whether you’re looking on behalf of a business, or as a private individual, there are a range of tools available which can help you kick Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and all the other Big Tech companies out of your life...
Why Even Bother?
GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) are a huge part of our digital lives, and cutting them out of the things we do online is a pretty daunting undertaking. This being said, as evidenced in the increasing popularity of tools outside of Silicon Valley, there are many people who are making the decision to do so.
Businesses are frustrated due to the power imbalance that exists between them and these monolithic corporations. Individuals have complaints relating to the ethics of these businesses, monetization through invasive tracking ads and practices, algorithmic biases, and also the power that these companies wield. Any data you share with them has the potential to be used by them in training AI.
With Big Tech having embedded itself in both our digital spaces and the states that we live in, it’s high time that we look to alternative products to attempt to redress some of these imbalances. What follows is a list of tools which allow these companies a degree of control and visibility over your online activities, alongside some real alternatives which allow you to be your own small part of this larger shift.
❌ Gmail, Outlook
Why?
Big Tech is well-known for using all available data in order to profile you and find new and creepy ways of making money. Your email inbox contains some of the most sensitive conversations you’ll ever have: those about health, employment, and relationships. Do you trust the surveillance capitalists with access to that information?
What Instead?
Fastmail, ProtonMail, Tuta, Mailfence
Cloud/Drive
❌ Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive
Why?
It all depends on what you’re storing, but it is highly likely that you’ll have something you’d much prefer to keep to yourself on a drive. Your family photos? They might be used to train AI. Your private letters? They might just end up helping Google to pitch you ads. Photocopies of your ID documents? Better to keep that somewhere more secure.
What Instead?
Documents & Notes
❌ Google Docs
Why?
Google Docs does not use end-to-end encryption, meaning that Google has the ability to access data which are stored in those documents and spreadsheets you host on their servers. With over 1 billion active monthly users, and a long history of violating user privacy, Docs gives Google a massive repository of information that they could use to train AI and create newer, more invasive, forms of advertising.
What Instead?
LibreOffice, StandardNotes, Joplin, Notesnook
Team Communication Platform
❌ Teams, Slack, Discord
Why?
Rather than involving a third party in the process of building your business or coordinating around your new project, why not deploy your own open source and self-hosted option? With a tool like Zulip you can be safe in the knowledge that a possibly weak link in the chain has been removed from the conversation. If you’d prefer to pay for the service to be hosted by them, that’s possible too - supporting alternatives rather than a company owned by Salesforce.
What Instead?
Zulip, Discourse (for something a bit different)
Video Calls
❌ Zoom, Google Meet, Teams
Why?
Video calls involve you routing through some far-away servers the contents of your conversation, your likeness and the items around you, and the way your voice sounds. All three of these are cause for concern if they fall into the wrong hands or are used against you - as surveillance capitalists tend to do. Using an alternative tool gives you peace of mind, preventing one valuable datastream from coming into contact with Silicon Valley.
What Instead?
Jitsi, Nextcloud Talk, Whereby
Hosting
❌ AWS, Azure, GCP
Why?
The hosting industry is operated by a few massive players, further entrenching their power in other areas through essentially providing the backbone of the web itself. Switching away from platforms like Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a proactive step towards aligning your usage of tools such as a VPS with your want to see a competitive market for these services.
What Instead?
Code Management
❌ Github
Why?
GitHub is the closed-source and Microsoft-owned code-management platform that hosts countless personal projects and companies’ products. Our two alternative solutions self-hosted, meaning you can cut out the dependency you might not want on even an alternative service, but they prevent you from feeding your code into a Microsoft property. Not only was GitHub definitely used to build Microsoft Copilot, it is further empowering a company with a history of user-hostile practices.
What Instead?
Shopping
❌ Amazon, eBay
Why?
Shopping giants, Amazon especially, have come to dominate online shopping, reaching what seems to be an unassailable position in e-commerce. Professional sellers pay large quantities of money to be featured on Amazon’s platform, and it has a long history of both labour violations and undercutting its own sellers. Thankfully anything sold on Amazon is likely to be found elsewhere...
What Instead?
Browse on Amazon or eBay, then find the product somewhere else preferably directly from the original seller elsewhere. Why not look for local retailers through a search engine?
Social
❌ Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit
Why?
Big Tech has a vice grip on much of the world’s communication in the so-called public square. Not only is this a space where they are able to get an even deeper idea of who you are, they can also pitch tracking ads at you, creating a bizarre, unnatural space full of misaligned incentives. This is without even touching the issue of how much power is vested in their hands, as they are able to control narratives online through algorithmic changes and censorship.
What Instead?
BlueSky, Mastodon, PixelFed, Lemmy
Search Engine
❌ Google, Bing, Google proxies, Bing proxies
Why?
Both Google and Bing, through their own engines and various proxies, exert a lot of influence over what we read, support, and purchase online. At Mojeek we don’t believe that this is a positive thing for society. Also, if you’re looking to strike at the nerve center of various Big Tech companies’ empires, the ad platforms from which they derive the bulk of their revenue is a great place to target. Google wouldn’t have nearly as much power if it wasn’t for their search ads and the search engine that distributes them.
What Instead?
For a true alternative that is far removed from whatever is happening in the US tech sphere, there is only one option: Mojeek, of course.
