A Canadian’s Call to Arms ⇥ aaron.vegh.ca
Most governments in Canada and around the world rely on Microsoft’s software. Most businesses route their applications through AWS. Most people tap away their lives on devices built and sold by American businesses, running American operating systems.
It’s like waking up and finding yourself ensnared. And it makes me mad as hell!
I get it.
This is, of course, a massively difficult problem. I love the MacBook Pro I am using right now, and it would be unbelievably difficult to get me to switch to some crappy product just to fight with driver incompatibilities again. A big problem is that trying to build a competitor to these established, widely supported, and well-integrated companies is a daunting task no matter where it takes place. The most valuable companies in the world rely on each other. The fact that we are in a situation where we must consider the consequences of our dependence on a handful of corporations showing a dictator-like level of obsequiousness to the U.S. president is also a big problem.
This can be a long-term goal. In the nearer term, we — the rest of the world — should take reasonable regulatory steps to curtail the influence and control of U.S. companies where we are. Any understanding that there was a great responsibility aligned with the great power of the U.S. has vanished, at least for now.