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What can we do to keep the web open?
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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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Kill google
Alphabet needs to be broken up, same as Microsoft and Apple and Amazon. The consolidation of tech into a few giant corporations that have a tremendous amount of power and hold a monopoly/duopoly is doing a lot of harm.
But it probably won't be, if we're being honest.
That's why we need to take matters into our own hands and refuse to use their services and support FOSS with all our efforts. The government ain't gonna do shit, this is a DIY project to save the open internet.
Activism exists for a reason. This isn't a DIY project, this is one that needs people to be more vocal and active so that governments do something about it.
The EU didn't start regulating apple & co because it woke up one day and felt like doing it, it did so because activists and people pressured them to do so or joined the world of politics to fix these issues.
The solution isn't to tackle it individually, that's how the corporations win, it's to get politically involved in whichever way we can and want to and tackle it as a group.
I'm not saying to tackle it individually, I'm saying to tackle it independently. As in independent groups that are not part of any government or corporation.
Any type of activism which is enacted through the channels of government and/or business is inherently meaningless in the grand scheme. You can move a few pieces around the board and get a small concession, but the wealthy will always find a way to outmanuever and come out on top. The game is rigged, and the fact that most well meaning people spend all of their activist energy playing into this rigged game is a tremendous waste.
It's necessary to quit the game entirely and start a new game. Which entails sustainable, self-sufficient, non-capitalist communities and structures. Eventually political interaction with established power structures will be necessary, but right now the average person has zero leverage. In order to have leverage, you need to not be working for the people you are trying to negotiate with, no?
The problem with activism is that it puts duct tape over leaking pipes, but never goes down to the basement and turns off the water pressure. It's a mental treadmill that drains revolutionary energy from people without producing meaningful change.
Don't get me wrong, you should definitely advocate for institutions to be better, it's a net positive (probably). But my point is that this whole paradigm needs to be disrupted, and activism is like mental masturbation for those who claim to want real change, but are uncomfortable with the drastic actions necessary to enact such change.
Is it necessary for the government to break up Reddit in order for Lemmy to succeed? I don't believe so, and even if I did, I don't believe they actually will. Instead of spending our whole lives praying for the government to save us from reddit, we are doing it ourselves.
And Verizon, Comcast, and all the other large ISPs. Probably cell providers too.
Not that I like Verizon and Comcast but they are only regional problems. They don't operate everywhere in the world.
In many countries, a lot of large ISPs are the inheritors of national monopolies and are not overly interested in global domination. They are shit, yes, but at a smaller scale. In this regard, they don't really pose as a threat to the idea of open internet.
Of course the US ISPs have a special place in the system and shouldn't completely be forgotten but they are very far from the global domination of Google et al.
Absolutely. Nothing should be above the rest. And we should know exactly what they are lobbying for "bribing"