The Post-American Internet
Imagine a world without Silicon Valley: a playbook on how to break the monopoly of US tech power - from the author of Enshittification.
The Post-American Internet is the most radical argument for a change in the ownership of the web since John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Cory Doctorow's radical call to power dismantles the US's monopoly over our technology and our lives, if we have the courage to ask for it.
Silicon Valley's origins are a tale of tech, and a tale of state capture. All through this century, the US has demanded that its trading partners pass laws that make it a literal *crime* for Big Tech's foreign rivals to compete head-on with US companies. Countries that balked were threatened with punitive tariffs. This policy, more than any other secured Silicon Valley's expansion of its monopoly across borders, amassing vast data troves and making spiralling profits.
But in an age of Trump, the tariff is no longer a threat. The weaponization of US tech against America's geopolitical rivals has also shown the world that it can no longer safely depend on American technology. Given all that, why should any state continue to abide by rules that so clearly put them at a disadvantage? Cory Doctorow argues that the time is now for nations to turn their backs on both the US and China to make their own technology. This requires the swift repeal of laws prohibiting reverse engineering and modification, followed by a full-court press to replace the world's software with sovereign, open code that runs on domestic clouds or has no cloud connection at all. This is the dawn of the Post-American internet.
Imagine a world without Silicon Valley: a playbook on how to break the monopoly of US tech power - from the author of Enshittification.
The Post-American Internet is the most radical argument for a change in the ownership of the web since John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Cory Doctorow's radical call to power dismantles the US's monopoly over our technology and our lives, if we have the courage to ask for it.
Silicon Valley's origins are a tale of tech, and a tale of state capture. All through this century, the US has demanded that its trading partners pass laws that make it a literal *crime* for Big Tech's foreign rivals to compete head-on with US companies. Countries that balked were threatened with punitive tariffs. This policy, more than any other secured Silicon Valley's expansion of its monopoly across borders, amassing vast data troves and making spiralling profits.
But in an age of Trump, the tariff is no longer a threat. The weaponization of US tech against America's geopolitical rivals has also shown the world that it can no longer safely depend on American technology. Given all that, why should any state continue to abide by rules that so clearly put them at a disadvantage? Cory Doctorow argues that the time is now for nations to turn their backs on both the US and China to make their own technology. This requires the swift repeal of laws prohibiting reverse engineering and modification, followed by a full-court press to replace the world's software with sovereign, open code that runs on domestic clouds or has no cloud connection at all. This is the dawn of the Post-American internet.
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Imagine a world without Silicon Valley: a playbook on how to break the monopoly of US tech power - from the author of Enshittification.
The Post-American Internet is the most radical argument for a change in the ownership of the web since John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Cory Doctorow's radical call to power dismantles the US's monopoly over our technology and our lives, if we have the courage to ask for it.
Silicon Valley's origins are a tale of tech, and a tale of state capture. All through this century, the US has demanded that its trading partners pass laws that make it a literal *crime* for Big Tech's foreign rivals to compete head-on with US companies. Countries that balked were threatened with punitive tariffs. This policy, more than any other secured Silicon Valley's expansion of its monopoly across borders, amassing vast data troves and making spiralling profits.
But in an age of Trump, the tariff is no longer a threat. The weaponization of US tech against America's geopolitical rivals has also shown the world that it can no longer safely depend on American technology. Given all that, why should any state continue to abide by rules that so clearly put them at a disadvantage? Cory Doctorow argues that the time is now for nations to turn their backs on both the US and China to make their own technology. This requires the swift repeal of laws prohibiting reverse engineering and modification, followed by a full-court press to replace the world's software with sovereign, open code that runs on domestic clouds or has no cloud connection at all. This is the dawn of the Post-American internet.
