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)

  • Pamasich@kbin.earth
    6·
    2 days ago

    This question looks odd on the fediverse. It seems to assume there’s no european alternatives to the sites mentioned here, which for most of them isn’t true. Or that there are only giant tech alternatives.

    You do realized piefed.social isn’t giant tech, right?

    I think with a world without access to US apps and online services, the biggest loss to humanity would be Wikipedia. If we narrow it to just giant tech, I think it’s easily doable. It would be a shame to lose the wealth of content on Youtube, but it’s something we can manage with.

    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?

    About the same as now? I mean, again, hobbyist social media exists, it’s not just giant tech. We’re literally using it. In such a hypothetical world, stuff like the fediverse would be much more popular.

    • Libb@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      This question looks odd on the fediverse. It seems to assume there’s no european alternatives to the sites mentioned here,

      I see your point but no, not really. I only listed the few most obvious example of big tech I could think of, as a trigger.

      You do realized piefed.social isn’t giant tech, right?

      I do. and that is a neat example of why it matters to keep things in perspective: how many of us is there compared to gigantic Reddit? So, when I was mentioning those few big tech I only mentioned what most people do use, it implied nothing on what alternative may be available.

      As a matter of fact their existence is the very reason why I decided to ask the question: wanting to see how people were using the Web and if/how they would need to change that usage without access to US-tech. Reading the many answers, a lot of seem to be fine without US tech but, obviously, we’re also aposting that on Lemmy which make most of us already biased against big tech ;)