A Revolution Against Big Tech

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” - John F Kennedy

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” - Ecclesiastes

These quotes provide a universal truth about the inevitability of change. It seems that the momentum toward such change as it pertains to big tech has been slowly building for some time. But, it appears that a revolution is now in full-swing.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, all house-hold names, have long been under scrutiny, first by small groups within the general public, and more recently by government officials and lawmakers. Plenty of other major tech companies have been dealing with the same challenges. The concerns have focused on such issues as the rights to a user’s privacy, censorship of thought and monopolizing their respective base. Now, it seems, the people have hit their breaking point.

Do you remember MySpace? If you are of a certain age you probably do. When Facebook came along, they essentially rendered that platform obsolete. Sure, it’s still around, but it’s largely irrelevant and a shadow of what it once was in its early days. This will happen to Facebook, it’s just a matter of when. This will happen to Twitter, Google and even Amazon, it’s just a matter of who will replace them as the go-to option and when.

Disgusted with the power and overreach of these platforms, new contenders have begun to emerge in a big way. And part of the reason for that is the previously mention notion of user privacy.

In terms of search, DuckDuckGo, an upstart that has exploded in popularity recently, prides itself on not tracking users and providing the same results for everyone rather than targeted results based on your history. The company is based out of Paoli, Pennsylvania, not exactly a hot bed of the tech industry. In some ways that might be a another feather in their cap distinguishing them from the same old thing. One of the slightly comical things is that it actually has a Google Chrome extension that allows you to use their search by default on a Google product. It is also available as a mobile app. According to Digital information World, as of September 20, 2020, the search engine had 65 million users and 4 million app/extension installations. In August, they accounted for more than 2 billion searches!

As for social platforms, a few options have recently emerged. Two that I am familiar with are MeWe and Parler.

If you like to discuss politics and don’t like to be censored or shunned for holding a position that might be right of center, Parler is an option for you. It’s alot like Facebook but also has a Twitter feel and is really easy to set up. The company calls itself a “free speech” network without users having to fear violence or censorship. It is very new as that it was only launched in 2018 but it’s already drawing users away from the big guys. According to Deadline.com, the company based out of Henderson, Nevada, has seen an explosion in growth. In just one week, it’s membership nearly doubled from 4.5 million to 8 million users with no indication of a slowdown.

I’ve written about MeWe before and this is a great time to do it again. More like Facebook in some ways, but much more streamlined and simple, MeWe is based out of Culver City, California. Last year, MeWe had around 5 million users but it’s been growing like a bad weed. In the last week, there were 218,000 new installs on the Google Play app store! This is according to data from Mashable.com. I’ve personally seen several new friend requests and new user updates in my email from my own account. MeWe even has something it calls a “Privacy Bill of Rights” and it is impressive for sure.

The bottom line here is that big tech has done some rather controversial things and some think it has far too much control over business, news, law... It seems like big tech’s time is running out and I for one welcome the mass exodus to better things.