FabRider

Seeing this Guardian “leave Big Tech behind” piece doing the rounds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replace-amazon-google-x-meta-apple-alternatives

While I’m glad alternatives are getting airtime, I just feel that if we frame this as just “swap Amazon/Google/Meta for tools that work just as well”, we’ve already lost.

Those tools usually don’t work as smoothly – they don’t have the same money, engineers or network effects – so people drift back to what “just works”.

Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more

A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives

The Guardian
Feb 27 at 12:38pmWeb
Show threadFabRiderFeb 27

For me, the real work is organising and awareness‑raising: helping people see what they give up by staying on Big Tech, why it’s a power and democracy issue, and that the only way alternatives get better is through long‑term, collective commitment to using and shaping them.

The Rise Against Big Tech #RABT coalition gives me hope – it treats this as a movement‑building project, not a shopping list of apps. https://riseagainstbig.tech

Welcome to Rise Against Big Tech

Our campaign is geared towards individuals and organizations that are ready to move to hosting providers more aligned to the values of collaboration, transparency, equity, community control and democracy.

Rise Against Big Tech