"Donald Trump's tariffs have opened up a new possibility for the technology we have become increasingly dependent on. Today, nearly all of our tech comes from US companies, and it arrives as a prix fixe meal. If you want to talk with your friends on a Meta platform, you have to let Meta's Mark Zuckerberg eavesdrop on your conversations. If you want to have a phone that works, you have to let Apple's Tim Cook suck 30p out of every pound you spend."
"If you want to search the web, you have to let Google's Sundar Pichai know what colour underwear you've got on. This is a genuinely odd place for digital computers to have got to. Every computer in your life, from your mobile phone to your smart speaker to your laptop to your TV, is theoretically capable of running all programmes, including the ones the manufacturers would really prefer you stay away from."
US trade threats long blocked foreign attempts to regulate technology in ways that favored local citizens, using tariffs to deter reforms. Recent tariff actions under Donald Trump altered those incentives and created an opportunity to rethink dependency on US-dominated platforms. Consumer devices are largely produced by US companies and sold as bundled, closed ecosystems that require surveillance, fees, and platform vetoes. Examples include social platforms monitoring conversations, app stores exacting payments and control, and search engines collecting intimate data. Technically, devices can run any software, so the current restrictions are commercial and policy choices that could be reversed to enable a la carte software choice.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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