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)
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.