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)
Funny, but for me very little would change. The only one of those I use even occasionally is YT, and the videos would start appearing elsewhere. Peertube, maybe?
EDIT: Oh, I’d lose my steam library. That would be a nuisance!
You’d lose most of everything. If you think AWS and cloudflare and such arent U.S. owned, ignoring Microsoft, we are missing most of it.
Edit: your domain you are posting this on is cloudflare I believe, so U.S.
You know the internet was around before AWS and Cloudflare? People could go back to hosting their own websites on their own hardware. Sites would take longer to load without the cdns.
I self-host my own shit including game servers, so I would read lemmy while playing Terraria or AssaultCube.
So pretty much no change.
Yeah, I am currently using a PieFed instance that is behind Cloudfare, because my regular instance has problems. But I have preferred instances not behind Cloudfare.
AWS, it’s not really legal for any public institutions in EU to use AWS. Many do anyway, though. So yeah, some stuff might break in the society. But not that many things I use personally. Hopefully they have backups of their code on their own servers as well, so that if AWS ever disappears, they can quickly run the same code on some sensible platform. Wonder where their databases are physically located, though :D
OP only listed consumer services, not the infrastructure side. I completely agree with you that if we would take that part into consideration then … Not a lot in the beginning. And in the end because the whole financial sector is also dependent on various US companies and their online services to process most payments … Shit. I don’t know which other critical infrastructures would break because stuff behind the curtain disappeared.
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That said if it’s really only “what I as consumer use” then things would look different - even though it all comes down to the details. I.e. no smartphone would be a nuisance … unless Linux phones count.
So… Just like I already do today?
I suppose you didn’t mean litterally just those, but many American companies.
But of the ones you listed, sure I don’t really use any of them.
Tiktok? Really? Yuck. Facebook? Never have. Netflix? Do they even have anything good on anymore? Google? I haven’t used their search index long time. And so on.
My email has never been a major provider.
So… Just like I already do today?
Maybe? That’s the whole point of my question (and why I also briefly shared my own usage in a comment): getting an overview of what it would change, if anything.
I suppose you didn’t mean litterally just those, but many American companies.
Indeed, I just listed the most obvious. Maybe it was also a way to trigger reactions?
Email is an interesting one. I haven’t used any major provider, and I always use my own domains.
I used to just host my own.
But hosting your own email is tricky now. Getting the major providers to trust your domain is a pain in the ass.
Yes, I tried self-hosting too. Too much frustration for me. Heck even with my own domain that is hosted by a tiny but legit host, can sometimes have issue with emails not reaching their destination.
Most of those US services (YouTube, Twitter, etc.) arose to fill a niche which was opened by expanding access and bandwidth. Take YouTube as an example, the idea of sharing a video on a dial-up connection was simply silly. Just downloading the contents of a 1.44MB floppy on a 14.4kbps modem took forever. Even when we got to a 56kbps modem, pictures could still be slow and GIFs were painful to download. It wasn’t until home DSL or cable connections became common that sharing a video was even close to reasonable. In that environment, we saw the start of media sharing services rushing to fill a previously unknown “need”. The most well known was Napster for music sharing, but we also saw the start of bittorrent clients. While not exactly legal, early music sharing and torrent sites showed that people wanted to be able to download media. And with sites like MySpace or GeoCities cropping up, it was apparent that people wanted to also create and share media. YouTube simply married up those two desires at a time where the technology could reasonably support it. And they have massively capitalized on the first mover advantage. With them also having Google money to scale the service, they now sit in a fairly privileged position in their niche.
I bring this up to say that, were US based services snapped out of existence, new services would arise to fill the gap. If you look at somewhere like China, where access to US services is highly regulated, they aren’t simply doing without, they are creating their own alternatives. TikTok is a good example, while it lacks the longer form videos of YouTube, it did provide media sharing in China. Were YouTube to be blocked at the Great Firewall, TikTok is in a good position to expand into the longer form videos. China also already has WeChat which fills much of the Twitter and FaceBook nice. Russia has VKontakte for those spaces as well. Basically, any place which isn’t well served by US based media giants has their own solutions to fill those gaps.
Western Europe (using EU as shorthand, though yes I know the EU isn’t all of Western Europe) has the issue of being closely linked with the US economically and culturally. US based services can operate in most EU countries with little friction. Sure, they have to figure out GDPR and Data Privacy issues, but that’s not a major barrier, despite US companies’ whining. So, given the size, first mover advantage and money behind the US based solutions, there hasn’t been space for reasonable EU based replacements. Why use some second rate EU based system, when the US system works so well, and the EU and US are such good allies and closely linked?
Of course, that last bit is changing (which is part of why you’re asking the question, no doubt). With the US Government going quickly off the rails, and US tech giants doing their damnedest to enshitify everything, the deep cultural links between the US and EU are starting to slip. There might now be space for EU based services to try to step in and replace services like YouTube or Twitter. And that’s the answer to your question. If those services go away, they will be replaced by something else. In time, they are probably bound to be replaced anyway. At one time everyone though MySpace was here to stay, these days I suspect some folks had to google it to figure out what the hell I was going on about. It may be a long time to come, but I’d bet on YouTube eventually being replaced. I have no idea what will replace it, but nothing lasts forever.
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.
and rekindle the interest for a smaller more fragmented Web
Why wait? https://indieweb.org/
Thx for the link, I will check that and see if my own tiny, silly blog can fit anywhere with them.
Just FYI when switching to light mode the layout on your website breaks (doesn’t have a max-width any more)
How do you switch mode on my blog? I mean, it’s static and, to the best of my limited understanding, I’ve removed anything in the theme that remotely looked like a script… so I’m surprised you can toggle its theme. Is there a toggle I’ve missed somewhere? (Also, maybe we could discuss that through MP to avoid making useless noise in the thread ;))
Your blog follows the system theme.
I would probably need a different phone (iPhone) and would replace YouTube with Nebula or something. Other than that nothing would change for me.
I would use that corporate-free Web for email, like we used to in the 90s) and for the Fediverse (the little of it I’m using). I would use it to read… blogs, and to post more regularly on my own blog too.
I don’t use social media much (beside here) and would not miss not accessing Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter or whatever else. I have not used Google for search for quite a few years now, so that would not change much for me.
I would probably miss YT, though. I would try find alternatives to it and… to the majority of US content I’m subscribed to on YT.
I’m not much of a gamer and would not miss much there. I do play chess, mostly IRL and against people not machine, but I would probably still play from time to time online chess on Lichess (not US and not corporate owned, no tracking, no ads, free and open source).
I’ve quit using streaming services a few years ago, moving back to owning physical copies of the media I watch or listen to, and read.
Since, I use Free/Libre Software there is also no real dependency on any country of origin for them. Also, all those apps all work fully offline too. No need to even connect to the Internet to use them.
How would I use internet?
Pretty much the way I use it now?
For maps I use OSM, with eventual searchs in HEREwego in case I don’t find something.
I use proton and tuta as mail services.
I don’t have any social media account (that is xitter, fb and the likes).
I don’t use youtube at all (I prefer reading to watching a video):
For gaming I mostly play indies and they are rarely from the US, I could live without the US ones. Worst case, I love retrogaming, I can go for years with my chinese retro-handheld and the amount of roms and romhacks that exist right now
As for streaming? I’m all in stremio, and I despise usonian content (even more lately) so all I watch is European shows, korean shows and anime.
As I was writing this, I came to realize that I really don’t depend at all of usonian shit. They could go to hell and banish from this world for what I care.
Happily.
:)
Get a VPN and use Euro internet. Actually I’m starting to think that’s a good idea anyway.
For me the web is mostly the place I read blogs. I read a lot of US-based ones that are maintained by smart people. I would miss those, but the rest of the world is certainly not lacking real smart people. If they were to remove access, the US would be the real loser imho.
Self censorship robbed us all. I loved coming across some random blog of a passionate enthusiast. Sitting at 2am thinking hmm maybe I do need to consider learning how to wire lights on a small boat….no 226 lights is a perfectly fine amount of lights for a 12ft boat. I hope this guy sails past me one day. Those were the days.
These days you just don’t find them. People looking to monetise exploited anything good out of existence…and of course you literally can’t find them due to search engines turning to crap.
And of course those places were more about what you could give rather than what you could take.
Self censorship robbed us all.
These days you just don’t find them. People looking to monetise exploited anything good out of existence…and of course you literally can’t find them due to search engines turning to crap.
And of course those places were more about what you could give rather than what you could take.100%.
You can still find blogs, thx to… human curation. by trial and error, too. Or by using dedicated search engines that focuses on a more personal Web. I used to use Kagi ‘small Web’ feature that centered searches on small website. Like it a lot? But there are others Thinking about it, it could be worth putting all our solutions and workarounds together.
Kagi is paid yeh?
Other companies would come in to fill the void and we’ll have new tech giants, if not in the US then elsewhere. The point is nothing will change, these tech giants are what they are today is because they ultimately provides services that a lot of people want to use. I don’t see them going anywhere.
However, for the spirit of your question, if we just remove the corporate world from the internet, the internet will be what it used to be 20-30 years ago. It’ll be largely run by nerds and enthusiasts, and the user base will be a lot smaller and more niche based.
Like I did 25 years ago. We’d all use more different websites and that would be it. I’ll gladly take these giant corpos for granted because if they disappeared, the market would not disappear with them. There would be others which would replace them and in the beginning, they would all be small companies or community driven efforts. A glory to behold.
What do you really think there corporations can offer that can’t be replaced by anyone else? Shit, google in the 90’s was two guys in a garage and ebay was someone’s old computer used as a server and it worked. It can all be replaced.
We’re literally talking on Lemmy/Piefed right now, which would continue to work so I would just come here for recommendations on which search engines and websites to use as alternatives lol
Despite the quality of their results going down in recent years and getting worse because of AI slop, the search engines I would miss the most in terms of type of service. Most alternative search engine still use the indices of Google and/or Bing and the ones that don’t, don’t have a very big index. I’m old enough to remember a time when search engines were plentiful, but terrible, and back then I actually made use of web directories, like Yahoo! at the time, more. A still-existant example would be Curlie, an heir to dmoz, and there are also more local sites like the Dutch Startpagina. Being more dependent on things like that would probably make my web usage more exploratory and less about trying to find a specific piece of information quickly. And I would also go directly to specific websites more often when I do need specific information. But there are also a few companies working on making a European search index and this happening would undoubted accelerate their efforts, so depending on how that works out, not much might change at all.
Streaming-wise, there are local streaming services for films and TV shows and they would undoubtedly expand their offerings with the loss of competition from American giants, but also, I never stopped buying BDs and DVDs (in fact I have a backlog). I never understood the appeal of music streaming, so I still buy music, sometimes even on CD. As for something like YouTube, Nebula is America-based, but it’s not “big tech”, so I would watch more of that. Niconico Douga isn’t what it used to be, but that might change without YouTube. And there would probably also be some movement towards federated video streaming.
I don’t actually make use of any of the big social media platforms. Technically, I have a LinkedIn account, but I don’t really use it and wouldn’t miss it. It’s not really social media, but I do use WhatsApp, but that being gone would just make it easier to convince friends and family to switch to something better.
US tech is a big pile of garbage.
All of it is to make you addicted, to track you, to influence you, to collect all sort of intel about you, and then use that against you. And they will serve you ads as the cherry on top.
For me they can all disappear and be gone. There are plenty of activities (internet or otherwise) that can be done without that pile of shit.
I have Proton with custom domain as email service, I have my own encrypted backup in an European VPS, have my own private cloud also in European VPS.
Don’t need US garbage.
Imagine there is no…
YT - dont use it. Don’t like video tutorials, I prefer to read them, don’t like adverts or propaganda!
no Twitter/X, no Facebook - not used them I over ten years
no Netflix, no Amazon - stopped using a few years ago
no Apple - never used
no Google to to search the Web - plenty of other search engines
no chatGPT - soon won’t be there for anyone!
I get my apps from F-droid, I read my web comics on websites, I send emails, I chat with my friends.
Does steam go in your scenario? In that case I imagine GoG will take over there!
You know, the only reason these companies have so much power over your government and so much of your money is they’ve tricked you that you’re missing out without them. 💁♂️
Agree for all except YT. It is unfortunately VERY VERY useful. You seem to have found a workaround that works for you though
You know, the only reason these companies have so much power over your government and so much of your money is they’ve tricked you that you’re missing out without them. 💁♂️
I don’t know if you’re speaking to me specifically here but I would like to point out an issue I see in your comment (as well as in a few others, yours being an excellent demonstration) that I think is at least as important as that supposed gullibility you seem to think is mine/ours in regard to big tech. I’m talking about this habit too many of us share in thinking and maybe I should say ‘in believing’ which seems more appropriate to this type of behavior, that we know (what’s going on, what to do) better than the others around us, while those others are being wrong and they are doing it wrong.
That ‘you’ (are wrong) you insist so much on, vs an implied ‘me’ (I know what I do), doesn’t help much pleading your argument. I thought you might to know that.
Also, note that you have no idea at all regarding my stance in regards to those big tech, nor how I chose to spend my money—like I have zero idea regarding the you do it, but I don’t suppose anything either.
Finally, the reasons you listed are correct, at least partly are (sure, our willingness to use them is an important factor), but they’re also far from being the ‘the only reasons’ things are the way they are in regards to US big tech, and why they have gained so much power. It would too long to list but allow me to share some quick hints:
- DMCA and all its many variations is making sure that no other country will ever be able to… ‘reverse engineer’ US tech (no matter if US tech itself does it since its very inception), giving them a serious edge no matter what potentially better (and non-US) product could come out of liberating apps and services from that anti-copying mechanism. (that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours, if most countries around the world have bowed in front of that absurd systems, and you can be assured that none of them has done it on their own free will… US economical power of coercion is as real and probably even more efficient as its armed forces (ask Iran and Venezuela, while we wait to see who’s next to get a taste of US freedom)
- It is not by sheer willingness to give away free money that US lobbyists do spend billions trying to force things to go the direction they want them to go, in the USA and around the world too. (what the US lobbyist chose to spend its fortune on that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours, not anymore than people being receptive to corruption or being unable to realize what is at stake is not our fault, right?)
- That is also not a coincidence if the latest US administration is plaguing the EU with tariffs (and with insults, and now with threats). It wants the EU to cave in and, among a few other things (like, say, our money), they want the EU to get rid of all those ‘mean’ rules we created to rein-in their precious ‘US big tech’ while protecting the data of our citizens. (seeing how clueless and coward most our EU leaders are, I have little doubt the EU will cave-in but that is certainly not my fault, nor is it yours)
We could go on discussing the many other ‘reasons’ that make things the way they are but I think it’s enough, at least I hope so, to show you we can and should focus on much more than blaming our own lazy asses, that is if we want for things to really change, and that we could and should do it without trying to put our own little precious person on a pedestal while telling the rest of the world they’re all being stupid morons.
My 2 cents.
I do use Youtube. Through newpipe though. I’ll extend your premise , and presume there is no large tech company holding any site or service online. That also includes any generative AI.
How would I use internet?
Well, the same I did in the early 90s I guess. I can’t fathom it would be long before some kind of search engine popped up though. I guess I’ll be searching art online and sharing mine on platforms similar to Deviantart or the likes, if DA doesn’t exist I one hundred percent believe there would be online forums dedicated to sharing art and connecting through messages. I would probably also be text roleplaying in forums as well. Those things still exist on a small scale today.
I guess I would also connect to check news to a couple official news sites if there is no such thing as rss. Same for weather forecast.
I wonder what the situation would be about maps. Without Google, would we still have something large and accessible such as OSMand? I believe not only we would, they would be better, and they would probably be easier to use downloaded locally so that’s probably another thing I’d do.
Do we still have torrenting? I can see myself torrenting even more if I don’t have any streaming platforms.
