Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft.
It's so hard to start talking about them. They're everywhere, in every context. You, I, and everyone we know are using them. Be it at home, at work, school, or anywhere in between. They've become as instinctual and integral to us as a second skin. We use them to unwind, learn, entertain ourselves, surf the web, communicate, share, stay informed, travel, shop.
Let's start with the numbers. The ones that can be found.
65% of the world's population has access to the Internet. We're talking about 5 billion people.
Of these, 91% use Google as a search engine. 80% of desktops are Windows or iOS. 86% of internet browsing goes through Chrome, Safari, or Edge.
99% of smartphones in the world use Android or iPhone. For every purchase or app subscription on both platforms, Google and Apple retain the same percentage, 30%.
60% of purchases are made online. Of this, 40% goes through Amazon. For every item purchased, Amazon retains between 8% and 15%.
3 billion people use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to communicate daily.
94% of people with internet access use social media, where they spend an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes daily. 75% of this time goes through Meta, via Facebook and Instagram. 800 million people open Instagram at least once a day. 3 billion people use Facebook at least once a month.
Well.
Some might label it an oligopoly, others might dub it techno-feudalism. Without a doubt, it's a fresh incarnation of hyper-capitalism that, armed with global, instant communication, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, has achieved levels of dominance and ubiquity that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.
Anticompetitive practices, lobbying, socio-political abuses, tax evasion, labor conditions, intrusion into the private lives of their users, and outright breaches of it. When you start to add up the compounding impact of all these actions, you begin to see the larger narrative. What society could be, thanks to all that's been invented, versus what it actually is, or even worse, what it's becoming.
Personally, I've hit saturation point. It's time to take action. Studying and openly sharing is the first step to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, and to stop pretending that everything is normal. The subsequent, and far more challenging step, is to willingly seek out alternatives, to shift ingrained habits and preferences.
In the upcoming posts, I'll attempt to share my detox journey, step by step, focusing on one issue at a time, and guided by my personal interests and priorities. It will be fun!
