Anti Big Tech Companies Are Already Failing
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
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Over the past several years, we’ve seen a new segment within the tech industry thriving: the anti-big tech industry. The main purpose of most of these companies is to fix the mistakes of juggernauts like Google and Facebook. For example, ProtonMail doesn’t collect any personal data or browse through your emails. Similarly, Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging service that’s meant to take on WhatsApp. But, while these apps have seen a strong start, it doesn’t appear that they will be able to take on offerings from big tech companies. One of the main reasons for this is that most people simply switch to these apps due to some external event whether it be an Elon Musk tweet or a monumental event like the GameStop short squeeze. But, as these events become a memory of the past, people tend to shift back to big tech offerings. Another massive challenge holding back these anti-big tech companies is that it’s extraordinarily hard for them to make money while eliminating all of the profitable aspects of big tech. This video explains why anti-big tech companies like BeReal are already losing substantial portions of their user base and are failing.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - The State Of Anti-Big Tech
2:48 - Rocky Foundations
6:09 - Becoming The Villain
8:58 - Fundamentally Flawed
11:00 - The Future Of Anti-Big Tech
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Signal's goal was never to be an "anti-Big Tech company". It has been pigeonholed into that role by tech journalists and social advocates, especially since 2020. But from its inception, Signal was created by privacy-conscious developers, for privacy-conscious users. Before becoming widely known in recent years, Signal's main customer base were people who would've never even considered using Big Tech's services, rather than users switching from Big Tech to Signal when they suddenly realized how much their privacy was being violated by mainstream platforms.
being privacy-concious is anti Big-Tech tho
this privacy crazy apps it's only to help out n4z1s to spread their shit, but nobody it's already to talk about this
It did one thing though! Let people know about end to end encryption in conversations. There's one service google hasn't been able to take.... protonmail
One can be a privacy focused alternative without being opposed to what are an alternative to ;)
As mentioned in the video 'big tech' goal isn't to violate your privacy, it's grow their business.
Signal's goal is to provide a privacy focussed alternative.
These two goals are not opposing each other :p
Aka people love getting kicked over by big tech
Failing is a strong word. These companies don't care that much about being super profitable or being the top dog. They are just passionate. A great example is Signal which is a non profit company. They don't make any revenue. They just care about serving an app that respects and protects the privacy of the users who use it.
Did you even watch the video?Passion can only go a long way,you can't feed mouths with passion
@@jeffersonhassan4558 because the world is led by non-passionate people, that's why.
Last time I've checked, you can't pay salaries, rent, or buy groceries with passion.
@@Samazing01 Ummm except u can. Signal is a non profit organization that gets its revenue from donation and grants. Same goes for other non profit organization. Blender is an another great example. It's free and open source and funded purely through dono and grants. There are no profit motives in these companies. So yeahh.... last time I checked passion do pay salaries, rent and groceries
Ah yes it is well known data centers & engineers are dirt cheap....
9:49 Someone finally said it.
I don't even use Tik Tok, nor Instagram, but I can testify that I rarely see clickbait videos on CZcams due to me refusing to watch them. It's as simple as that.
same
some clickbaits are sometimes good tho, my yt experience is mostly channels i follow or videos i look up and stuff. idk what others are watching but personally i dont particularly care if its clickbait if the video is good
I thought it's quite simple. Whenever one see some trash (clickbait, celebrities, ancient aliens, mainstream media, ect) one has to click on don't recommend channel. It did not take much effort to force it to select high quality content.
There are often videos that I watch but don't want the algorithm to recommend them to me. The only way I found to communicate it to the algorithm is to manually delete every watched video that you don't want recommended from your history, or to turn it off entirely. I turned it off, and just like that, I can easily manipulate my recommendations by liking only those videos I want to see there
I used to click on one once in a while, and it would fill my feed with similar videos. It would take a week before they cleared out. Now, I'm more discerning about identifying them and not clicking them. Recently, I've been clicking on a lot of videos like these, so now my feed is filled with lots of economic knowledge videos. I also had a science phase, brainteaser phase, and cooking phase. The algorithm adapts very quickly. It also knows what sports tournament I'm currently watching. Just try not to misclick!
Dude, you just logically-answered yourself - Big Tech has created addictive apps, so they're impossible to ditch. It's not like cocaine is the best snuff out there, but once you're on it you can't put it down. It's a first-mover advantage
It turns out the actual drug dealers even, are the CZcamsrs. These days, you've gotta create the best thumbnail and title that manipulates in such a way that people have to watch to know what the topic was about, or even straight up click-baity stuff...
Wdym first mover advantage? Google wasn't the first search engine, nor was Facebook the first social network, etc.
I can't ditch WhatsApp nor Facebook because is the only place you can find everyone over 25. Good luck trying to find your aunt in Discord or Snapchat.
@@poulticegeist But they were the first to make the web hyper-addictive
@@Jose04537 how about, her home? It isn't social to be connected via the digital stream, it's lazy. Discord is fine for when you're gaming, snapchat=depravity. If someone doesn't live near you, you could call them, or text them. All the updates on their days, pics, who actually cares? if you cared, you'd ask. Scrolling and liking a post doesn't mean anything, it's mindless time wasting. If you care, you reach out.
People keep lying to themselves that they're connected with these platforms.
another reason why open-source software is so important... its maintained by people who are passionate, and its hard to shut down a company when someone can just fork the code repo and start over again
Open source made by stealing so that entitled brats can pretend to be the victim.....
A shared service requires backend servers and those cost money and run on electricity that costs money even if they run free software.
@@SmileyEmoji42 thank you for stating the obvious.
@@SmileyEmoji42 still way easier than creating ur own from scratch. You need the server in both cases.
Signal itself is open-source, which is why it will keep on surviving. As long as someone is there to maintain and fork it, it's extremely hard to outright kill.
Turns out if you don't make it addictive people don't get addicted 😮😮😮
No one wants to be evil until they realize how much it pays to be evil 🤑
vlc founder refuses to put ads into vlc even tho that would make him millions
@@sliwkaaa Who the hell would even use a media player (to play THEIR files) that has ads in it?
The fact that he hearted this says a lot about him…
@@Kromiball mx player says hi
@@Kromiball MX player bruh
This is because all of these applications and platforms are social networks, and social networks/media only work if EVERYONE you know is there.
The opposite of Big Tech is actually _not_ Alt Tech/Small Tech, it's *No Tech.* Literally ditching phones and computers entirely and actually going up to other people in real life and speaking with them in person.
Sadly I have to agree with this video... I'm a Linux user since 1999, also have signal and removed almost everything from meta from my mobile, but it's impossible not to have a certain level of compromise or to be 100% idealistic 100% of the time. Sad but true.
yep google and microsoft accounts and apple accounts are necessary now
@@good-tn9sr Google maybe, but MS and Apple seem very avoidable (especially the latter, given how they're tied to their unaffordable hardware).
@@Sasha-zw9ss well for work, and in college you NEED a Microsoft account for Power Point, Outlook, and Excel. At least from my experience, as my college Pennsylvania State University has a pre assigned microsoft account for every student and I know this is the case for family members in other big colleges. Now for Apple, at least in America, it’s unavoidable as over 60% have an Apple device, and they are pretty affordable considering how long of software updates they get which lowers their true cost (or true potential cost).
@@good-tn9sr Libreoffice, anyone? Also, Apple is no way near affordable, its PHONE costs more than my whole laptop.
@@Sasha-zw9ss I agree Apple is overpriced a lot. Look at how much better an android phone can do with a custom ROM and without the apple bullshit (=
The main problem is that "big tech" companies, even ones founded recently, just pull billions in investor money that will realistically never be paid back. Twitter, Discord, Reddit, and many other big names have had few to none profitable years. Meanwhile, ethical "anti big tech" companies have to worry about their finances, and don't have that kind of marketing and PR spend. You can't compete with evil without becoming evil yourself.
Facts!
You have to fight fire with fire basically
Seems the core issue is advertising without violating privacy. As soon as someone figures out the algorithm (and I'm not talking about Google's efforts here) the world can move forward.
Either that or they run to the government for a bailout like most every other big company at the first sign of trouble.
Actually it is realistic that they will be payed back.
Their stock increasing and when the apps introduce new pay tiers or change some things that were free to being paid for, like what Reddit did quite recently
@@mamellomolokwane1762 stock is just made up company value, you're just buying a portion of the company, until the company is actually able to make a profit it's just all one big ponzi scheme
Problem really is that most of the companies are platforms, and as long as you have got the customers using your products, they are basically locked in. They are natural monopolies if they capture enough people, since it's about that network. So to be frank, I think only solution is to open up these platfroms by force. For example, assuring compatibility with messaging apps, or sending files between clouds, etc.
Like said in video, people can't stand these companies, but due to nature of the product, they kinda have to use them, sacrifice a ton, or spend a lot of effort to convice their circle to switch, which probably wouldn't work for everyone anyways. Not because they are good, but because they have the people. There's really nothing people or competitors can do.
yeah it's like, if you really care that much about not enabling cookies you're probably pretty isolated in your own little world
@@tzarg
I use 2 plug ins to help with cookies.
1.: I dont care about cookies - every single cookie of every single website I visit is accepted.
2.: Cookie auto delete - If I leave a website every cookie it used gets deleted. (some websites are white listed)
I dont have to worry about any cookie anmore
I don’t use Amazon or FB or anything. I am addicted to CZcams though. But that is easy to reproduce, and don’t care about the viewer community. Just the content, but anyone could make a new CZcams.
So basically what email does? Where services can connect to each other. The European Union is preparing a legislation about that, Apple and it's iMessage exclusivity is not very happy about it.
@@TheBooban "Everyone can make a CZcams" No, hosting videos is expensive and keeping an "advertising friendly" platform is even more expensive because you require moderators.
Making the parallel between anti-tech companies and diet was brilliant.
One of the other core problems with anti big tech social media apps is that most people don't use it which makes it even harder for you to use it.
This explains why my favourite big tech app is CZcams. You can binge without feeling like you wasted your time or compromised your intelligence. If something is thought provoking without being really addictive, it's a great use of your time
Facts I feels the same about Reddit and Twitter (before Elon).
@@tycooperaow reddit and twitter are the worst tf you talking about
CZcams is one of the most addictive platform. That's why it's called Rabbit hole..
I love CZcams
@@tycooperaow If you think browsing reddit and twitter is not wasting your time then your intelligence has already been compromised by them
One of the reasons why DuckDuckgo declined was their stance on the Ukraine War and what they did shortly after the war happened.
They then got accused of censoring illegal downloading sites and right after the Microsoft Tracker controversy happened.
DDG's decline mainly came from things which were happening
signal is foss why would anyone put it in anti big tech, if you do please include the failing of GNU/Linux too
I love signal!
But they dead..
I also use it
No clue why Signal is failing tbh. I have had really positive experiences with it, especially with how well backups and transfers work with it
Lack of new features
@@Jeez001 How many new features does WhatsApp release? Chat apps don't need fancy new things weekly
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” ~ Mark Carrigan
Correction: Profitable villian
when i was in school i thought i could build another Google, CZcams in india
but then i release their R&D budget is 20-30 billion $ , and total revenue they generating from india is 1.5-2 billion $ that's not even 1% of their revenue
i think it's impossible to beat these tech giant companies in this century
Nothing is everlasting, even them start from small and the beat old one like yahoo, friendster etc.
We thougt that about MySpace or Yahoo aswell.
I'm sure many will fail before a century.
It really is amazing how big and widespread some companies were in the early 1900s and they are now irrelevant or dead before 2000.
Look at IT companies from the 80s. Commodore, Wang, DEC.
@@sn5301679 Google and CZcams will no doubt still be around for decades, even if they would disappear the alternative will most likely be no different since Google and CZcams pretty much built the "perfect" platform that it gets repeatedly replicated in other services. Even the current Bing is practically a google clone.
Very good video, One fact is also that CZcams is always a variety which you can't recreate elsewhere for videos.
Thank you Philip!
I remember there was a blockchain version from 2017 that failed to get even cryptobros to use it over CZcams
@@hello-friend990 There was also Vidme that used to be which closed because hosting videos is actually not profitable to run.
This is one of the best videos I've watch from you. Nailed it. Funny thing is those anti big tech companies rely on big tech services.
The biggest misunderstanding about big tech and algorithms is that *they* decide what we wanna see. Actually no, the users decide 100% what they wanna see, and the algorithms are just really good at showing them exactly what they, deep inside, want to see. If your feed looks fake and full of happy people that fit in the current beauty standards, it's because that's what actually attracts you and keep your attention. If it has anger-generating content, it's because that's what you show the algorithms that you engage with. At the end, social networks are just as bad as the society that uses it is. Ofc, fighting fake news is super important, but there's not much they can do besides that. We should remember that, when it comes to content, the user is ultimately responsible for what they are consuming, not the big tech. They share responsibility for some of it, but at the end it's us the problem.
That's not really true. It's ultimately a feedback loop. If for example CZcams suggestions push you towards more and more radical content people develop opinions they wouldn't have otherwise if not exposed to it. Many lack the awareness to reflect, especially the young and simple minded.
Also, TikTok for example literally had humans decide what was allowed to go viral and what didn't, if that's not classic mass manipulation I don't know what to tell you.
Dumbest thing I ever heard😂.
@@Alias_Anybody being able to be radicalized is a thing ANYWHERE on the internet, it has little to do with whether big tech exists or not
@@sunnysideupp1
It depends on the ALGORITHM. If the company that's writing it is large or small is secondary.
Something like that is often called a pipeline. That barely exists on the free web, for example you won't get 4chan recommended if you read about trees on Wikipedia. But more and more radical stuff being pushed into people's feeds on CZcams and Facebook is absolutely a thing, anyone who denies that is full of sh*t.
I actually love BeReal's premise and execution and use it pretty much daily
I really hope it sticks around, it's refreshing to see people post unedited, every day, boring pictures for once!
My problem with BeReal is that the boring became predictable and often staged, which was the opposite of what the premise of the app is. I was hoping I’d just see what people I knew were doing at different times of day. But it ended up mostly being random selfies or people saving their BeReal for when they were out with friends or at a concert and then all posting the same thing. Also, it was fun when people sent personalized emotes/reactions at first, but everyone gradually started reacting with generic 👀 preset photos or the same picture of their stuffed animal for every friend’s image because they were rushing to interact meaninglessly with all 50 friends’ BeReals at once.
People hate big tech but are already too ingrained into its addicting ecosystem to do anything about it. thats depressing.
That's only if you have nothing better else to do with your time
@@tycooperaow Well yeah, thats pretty obvious...? Lol
very interesting, thank you. this makes a lot of sense. i liked the fast food comparison, so true those big unhealthy food chains have done very well over time, while little mom and pop restaurants with high quality food seem to turn over quite a bit
Your video essays are incredibly addictive
You guys always find the best topics
Conclusion, people live from false espectations and those big companies feed on that illusion to strive and monetize for!
Don't forget OpenAI, which started trying to protect us from bad AI and ended up selling out and causing it to appear.
I used to have over 7 hours of social media time but thankfully now that has reduced to less than 2 hours. Hope to get it under 1 hour by the end of April :)
Great video as usual! Keep it going!
Wonderful video. People try to lie to themselves and blame others for their own bad habits. These companies are simply feeding into your desires.
*good or bas habits
In case of signal, people have started to go for telegram coming from whatsapp.
the problem for some things is that a lot of the computers won't let you change the default of things easily. which makes it hard to keep changing things or having to remember to go a bunch of extra steps to use it
and I think the algorithms of some/most of the things are skewed. but we are not allowed to admit that or we are hidden from everyone
Thanks for the video!
You forgot one way a company like signal or bereal can gerenate money, and that is "Donation"
Signal generate money by donations from their users and from some big time or wealthy people.
Algorithms are a mirror, and we hate the reflection we see.
So the anti big tech companies are falling now well at least I will remember them and nice video man :]
i have seen some negative comments about the voice acting but to be honest itr really chill and calming
This analysis is flawed with regard to Signal. It’s run by a non-profit. They don’t have VCs who can push them to betray their principles. They can’t be acquired,a do even if they wanted to sell out, they don’t have user data because they don’t collect it.
Thanks for sharing.
How do these reporters know that Signal is down in DAUs when Signal doesn't collect this data?
Where do they get it from?
If you want to defeat big tech - become necessary for them
Like Linux
I work in big tech. My company encourages use of open source projects under conditions. Strong community support mostly. No obscure forks.
Real talk in the last couple minutes of this video. We have no one to blame but ourselves...
The diet analogy is dope
Signal needs to bring back SMS support. If its so confusing for someone to know if theyre sending SMS or a signal message, don't use it as your default SMS app.
It’s 2023. SMS should be entirely disabled.
@@FlorianWendelborn that's valid but its not disabled and it was the only way I could keep my pleb non signal users on the same app
They removed it for security concerns. Google messages has a SMS encrypted service if the other person also uses Google message as their default SMS app.
@@Jose04537 Maintainability and User Confusion was also a major concern (according to the signal devs at least)
I think most other people apart from the US don't have this problem at all... Most of us use whatsapp/telegram etc... So not an issue... But apparently, many users of the USA are oblivious to these things, and still send messages via iMessage ( whatsapp+sms), or sms( android), which is the reason for the whole blue vs green shit...
RE "would you ever attempt a big tech detox", I still use CZcams, Gmail etc a lot but for about 3 years I've almost entirely cut my usage of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and I truly feel nothing of value has been lost, I'm not missing out on anything that really matters.
When you market yourself as "the new thing" don't expect to last longer than your relevancy as "the new thing."
When the Internet first started becoming popular with average people, Companies gave people services they didn’t pay for. Unfortunately, we are still addicted to free services, but every free ride has hidden costs and we pay with our privacy and mental health. For the services I really love, CZcams being one of them, I’d prefer to pay because it is a better experience without all of the annoying ads.
i've made a "diet" from facebook, last year, for exactly ONE MONTH: i've deleted by account (you can do it temporarily, like a voluntary suspension). It was liberating. Since i still need the social media for personal contacts, i've removed most group subscriptions and most pages which i've liked. I've also deleted the app from the smartphone. Now the feed has sense: there are only updates from the people i really care about.
Problem is, many of those companies still do evil shit and track their paid users, simply because they can get away with it.
Signal exists for people that would never in their life consider installing whatsapp on their phone in the first place, their audiences have almost 0% overlap, it is a niche open source product that supports itself through donations for the most part.
It needs to send a message from one phone to another with complete privacy and security and that's all.
It's really sad. In Belgium nobody even cares to join signal...
I tried convincing my friends and family. Some of them joined but most of them said they were fine with Facebook and ignorant of the big tech consequences...
We have had open source alternatives to big tech products for the longest time. So money shouldn't be the number 1 concern. I even sat through a Richard stallman lecture about this.
I'm not anti big tech but I'm anti "anti-consumer" companies. Apple for example is a company I hate with a passion but I love their products and services. It's not the products I hate but the business practices itself
Well a good start to changing this is to point out that those services are definitely Not Free, we all pay higher prices for companies to funnel it for advertising.😵
People don't switch from them, because they are close to monopolies. I'll always buy from Amazon because I'm too poor to buy elsewhere. Big tech is working to put tens of millions of people out of work by developing AI and lobbying to make sure countries don't legislate AI
It's difficult to use a messaging app when almost none of the people you talk to. And it's impractical to have 100 different messaging apps as well. At some point, it just doesn't make sense to keep an app because you use it to talk to one person or so, even if the app offers better UX and privacy. Sad but that's how it is...
I would not oppose any tech company because CZcams is one of them. I learnt so much from CZcams, I owe my success to it.
Anti big tech companies isn't fundamentally viable because "nothing comes for free", somebody has to bear the cost, expenses, losses, means either customers or investors.
Once I toyed with the idea of creating a social network better for the mental health, with no echo chambers, incentivizing more understanding rather than conflict and more friendly with the privacy. However I found some pitfalls with the idea:
- Storing the data would be problematic, if the server cannot know your data, then, all the analzying for targeting ads should run on client (the idea would be that the client tells the server which kind of ads the user could be more interested in, and the server would only know that, without knowing anything extra about the users), and that would represent a big overhead.
- If the app is made open source, users could simply create a fork for removing the ads.
- The company would be economically encouraged to find ways to keep users hooked to the app, and that would mean, falling in the same practices a Facebook. Creating a conflict of interest between users and shareholders is an intrinsically bad idea.
...in the end, I still don't see how it would be possible to create a Facebook without the _evil_ part. It would require a completly different business model, and right now I don't a good one in mind.
It's not about being customer being happy, it's about fair opportunity for other start-ups to compete make big companies like already existing like Google's Facebooks.
Another reason is that running these anti-big company apps is not profitable. Just think about it, why would Google track us if they can't generate money from it. That's how they run the service. Cutting this off is like killing the service.
The real problem with "anti-Big Tech companies" is the "company" part. Companies have to make money. An alternative needs to be if not publicly-owned, then at least not obligated to make money. What's needed is equivalents which are only beholden to their users, which means open source and if maintained by an organisation at all, then by a non-profit. In the web browser space, that's Firefox, and for operating systems, Linux. Both of which are hugely successful (though Firefox has fallen a long way since Mozilla started trying to copy Chrome all the time).
maybe the anti big tech companies are failing because they are also big tech companies
Hearing you say “thots” was hilarious
Our generation has enormous amount of options to choose from
Which makes the people to choose the popular option and not try others
Sadly These companies are too overpriced to make investing reasonable...
Enforcing interoperability between similar-purposed applications will be the only way to ensure a certain level of personal freedom and fair competition.
fair competition? don't make me laugh
I think these social media platforms should have just gone open source and seen where it goes from there.
You probably hear this a lot: could you up the volume of your video? We constantly need to volume down when the ads appear (too loud) in between the video and switch it back up after. Thanks much. 🙏🏼
Signal is very much not dying. It got a ton of funding from security cocoons companies and got big user base of government agencies ( at least here in Sweden) and a ton of companies. It is not trying to be anti big tech, it is succeeding of being a secure ( end to end encrypted, open source) messaging platform. It also not trying to be profitable. I believe there even a non profit, in a similar form of the Wikipedia foundation. I don’t know of the other service you talked about but your WAY OF with signal and I’ve I excepted more from your channel
Facebook “lizard man” 😂
Amazon“bald man” 😂
Good one. Was it written by ai?
The biggest food company is not a salad chain...so logically answered.
You have to have a pretty good set into the stock market. As well as a true higher then real life inspiration.
No. Protonmail, Mullvad, noteshook are rising
big Tech detox? we just call that camping in the middle of nowhere
This is the problem with people right now. They want services that costs billions of dollars to keep up. Requires hundreds to people to maintain. But they want all that for free and at the same time don’t want the company to earn money off them either. How does that work? Will you let someone use your car for free without anything in return?
If the anti big tech companies didn't feel like propaganda or forced, more people would embrace them.
Using "data safety" or "no censorship" as a sales point will never work long term. Just give people something interesting, fun and functional.
I dont see signal failing anytime soon. Its being used by governments and companies all over the world
These tech companies need to be broken up
I only keep getting shown thirst traps because I keep going into the comments to see either the hate or the love
Same
People don't chose things based on their actual characteristics. Most people don't buy apple for the chip set, features or amount of RAM. They buy it because its apple. So brand recognition, propaganda, marketing, and social pressure. You can hardly blame them for this. Billions in dollars, hundreds of experts, thousands of hours spend by big players on figuring out how to get a person into their product and keep them there.
The other reason is because they're used to it. So a unwillingness to change and a overattachment to the sautes quo. You would be shocked what resistance people have to even trying a ad blocker. You can blame them for this. Experimentation especially with things that are free like web browsers is super useful and improving to your life.
But inevitably those companies slowly degrade the thing they're providing in persuade of profits. And even slowlier people look for alternatives. And slowliest of all they end up with something free as in freedom, open sourced and good.
@11:45 - "Attention cannot be created nor destroyed. There is a limited amount of attention out there, and people like spending it on things that they know they shouldnt be spending it on!"
"The biggest restaurant in the world isn't a salad chain, it's a burger joint". Says it all.
you don't have to become a villain you can become a community project like KDE, Gnome, Linux, and many more
BeReal is such an idiotic concept. I have no idea why anyone would use something like that.. How am I supposed to use social media less when a social media app (yes BeReal, be real. That's what you are) when a social media app bullies me into using it at a random point of every day? It's just r-worded.
I did not hear about Signal till this video
I remember using Signal in 2015 on my Blackberry
No one touches signal no one
signal is here to stay
Thats why Open Sourced software is sooo important!
As one of my favourite CZcamsrs would say: Power Corrupts
having a billion users can't be the only way in tech.
there should be a space for small tech companies.
they can't all infinitely grow to survive.
I mean they aren't made to make money they favor users but bereal is just a joke either don't use social media or be addicted there is nothing else
It's just a network effect in practice
I think the biggest flaw of most anti-tech companies is the positioning of "what it's not" rather than "what it is". If your entire purpose for existense is to serve the niche of people who don't like the way things are, you can still be successful, but you do have to evolve. People might try you because they think don't like the status quo or out of FOMO, but you still need to keep them coming back. The reason why big tech can grow so big is because their core function in people's live and the constant evolution of features. I love to hate big tech, but I do respect them for trial and error.
+ every single fintech startup founded in the past 5 years that that promises to do "revolutionize" the way we bank or trade stocks but essentially does the same thing as larger financial companies
Signal is not supposed to make money
The funny thing is that most of the big tech companies themselves don't make money off the ventures others try to clone, but from more stable ventures that float the rest of their companies (or are constantly unprofitable themselves). So if Big Tech had to compete fairly on the scale of their smaller rivals they would also fail.
Amazon => AWS
Apple (actually still makes a good percentage of their money selling devices - due to their high markups) => but soon they are switching to subscriptions and ads
Google => All Ads
Facebook => Ads
Twitter => Tesla & Dogecoin(🤣)
TikTok => China
Telegram => Some rich dude is bankrolling it
There's other examples but these are just the top ones that come to mind
Only because a platform shows us addictive content doesn't mean its enjoyable for the user or more precisely fulfilling so if the anti-big-tech companies offer a compelling competitive service I think they can make it. Also keep in mind you can still make money from ads while not tracking your user. Its what your good old newspaper uses in the physical edition and its called non-targeted advertising. Also I don't mind paying a bit if it means I can get away from big tech. They could just have a free and a premium variant or something