Why We Should Boycott ‘Apps’: A PSA

It hardly needs to be said, but one of the most nefarious activities of the corporate oligarchs and their fellow Epstein Class tech bros is trying to get us all to use ‘apps’ for everything online, instead of the open World Wide Web. Apps are simply a covert attempt at privatization of the commons of the internet. When corporations put stuff on the web, they have to (mostly) play by the well-established rules of what you can and can’t do there, established in the public interest. But when corporations operate on their own private ‘app’, they set the rules. They control what you can and can’t access, and under what conditions. They control the data on your attention, your demographics, your politics, your buying habits and history, and your ‘preferences’. So they can sell that data to others unimpeded. An “app” is a walled corporate fiefdom that has enclosed and replaced a public space. If you imagine the web as a huge mall, then the ‘app’ is a locked store with opaque windows and…