[gmadsen]

It is most certainly not, when your economic survival is dependent on these services. It is a false choice.

I challenge anyone to try and live a normal life completely disconnected from the servers of Amazon, google, Facebook, and Apple. It is impossible.

[carlivar]

There's a big difference though between minor ongoing consumption of their services versus choosing to work for these companies.

[mdp2021]

Please elaborate. Many of us avoid the services of the four entities you mention, completely or almost. Their «servers», or their intrusion (monitoring) more difficult, requires strategies, but there are ways. Where would those four crucial for one's economic survival?

[FractalParadigm]

A good majority of media takes advantage of AWS;

From [0]:

> Here are the names that are on record publicly as using AWS:

> Aon, Adobe, Airbnb, Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Acquia, AdRoll, AEG, Alert Logic, Autodesk, Bitdefender, BMW, British Gas, Baidu, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canon, Capital One, Channel 4, Chef, Citrix, Coinbase, Comcast, Coursera, Disney, Docker, Dow Jones, European Space Agency, ESPN, Expedia, Financial Times, FINRA, General Electric, GoSquared, Guardian News & Media, Harvard Medical School, Hearst Corporation, Hitachi, HTC, IMDb, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, International Civil Aviation Organization, ITV, iZettle, Johnson & Johnson, JustGiving, JWT, Kaplan, Kellogg’s, Lamborghini, Lonely Planet, Lyft, Made.com, McDonalds, NASA, NASDAQ OMX, National Rail Enquiries, National Trust, Netflix, News International, News UK, Nokia, Nordstrom, Novartis, Pfizer, Philips, Pinterest, Quantas, Reddit, Sage, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Scribd, Securitas Direct, Siemens, Slack, Sony, SoundCloud, Spotify, Square Enix, Tata Motors, The Weather Company, Twitch, Turner Broadcasting,Ticketmaster, Time Inc., Trainline, Ubisoft, UCAS, Unilever, US Department of State, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, UK Ministry of Justice, Vodafone Italy, WeTransfer, WIX, Xiaomi, Yelp, Zynga and Zillow.

Just AWS (as of 2020, per the artice). Apple could even be included in that list, according to CNBC. How many more are on Azure or GCP? I would argue you're not completely avoiding their services if you're still a 'customer' of their customer, they're just getting a much smaller cut of your (or the advertiser's) money at the end of the day.

[0]: https://www.contino.io/insights/whos-using-aws

[busterarm]

European companies and retailers are extremely sensitive to using Amazon and Google.

I have a long list of large customers that insist that none of their data is stored in AWS.

[HWR_14]

> Where would those four crucial for one's economic survival?

(Sidenote, I'm adding Microsoft. I assume your solution isn't "everyone should move to Azure")

I assume that most of us work in tech which, if it doesn't require actually working on software that is hosted by one of those five (or for them directly), requires looking at projects that are controlled by them. Do you use React or Angular? Maybe backend work in Go or C#? Ever use LinkedIn to network (or FB/IG), or use WhatsApp/MSTeams/Skype/GoogleChat to coordinate telework?

And 3/5 of those control all the major consumer OSes. Sure, maybe you run Linux as your primary device, but you probably have to develop stuff compatible with Windows, iOS or Android. So you need those to at least test.

Here's one article, probably not the best, of people trying to blackhole the major cloud providers and how that destroyed the internet experience.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/technology/blocking-the-t...

[beerandt]

I mean you can hardly buy a car now without it including shrink wrap terms of service for google or apple software. Or 3rd parties that share data with them.

[srswtf123]

I do it, daily, for several years now. In fact, I’ve left the industry entirely as a result of what I personally view as a complete lack of ethics on the part of every tech company.

You being defeated isn’t the same as being unable to live without FAANG.