The Beginning of the End of Big Tech

Meredith Whittaker argues that Big Tech's dominance is weakening and that 2025 could mark the beginning of its end, giving way to open, independent alternatives. She cites the CrowdStrike outage of mid-2024, caused by corner-cutting at Microsoft, which disrupted critical infrastructure worldwide, and says AI's weak returns are worrying major investors such as Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital. She also points to Microsoft's Recall, which would capture screenshots of users' activity and which she says conflicts with growing demand for privacy, and proposes that state funding, such as Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund, support open infrastructure. She notes Signal costs about $50 million a year to run.