It used to be a dream job. Now I've relocated back to Europe and want nothing to do with American Big Tech. It's become toxic and completely counter to my values.

America has become a much darker place that has a very different place in the world. American tech companies have not just accepted, but actively embraced this transition. I am not interested in joining them and being complicit.

"Security" vs Openness

> “make things so secure that we ourselves can’t break them, whether the device costs $1000 or $100, or the user is a celebrity or a refugee“

That can mean different things to different people in different contexts. Could easily mean building a software platform with security features that banks will build their apps to require.

And it worked --- for a while. Until the path became impossible to deny.

You've already forgotten the content of his post now. Right?

This is surreal.

Ultimately it all probably goes back to the fall of the Soviet Union and with that the loss of the clear 'good vs. bad/us vs. them' distinction which could be used to distract people on both sides from the rot in their midst. Politicos have always been corrupt no matter their colours or stripes but when the world was a simpler place - the Free West versus the Evil Empire, before that the Allies against the Axis - there was a common enemy for the people to refer to. Yes, some "democrats" already tried to take the side of the Soviets but they were in a minority while most of the Democratic party considered the politics and culture of the USA and the western alliance to be preferable over those of the Soviet Union and its satellite states as well as Communist China. They preferred "our" corrupt politicians over "their" corrupting ideology, i.e. they might be assholes but they're OUR assholes. When the eastern bloc dissolved the western alliance was like the dog which had caught the car: clueless as to what to do next. Fukuyama thought we were at the end of history but as anyone who had read a bit of (real) history could then already see this was a nonsensical idea. We're now experiencing the effects of that lack of vision which led to a 'Free West' which has taken over a number of the bad habits "we" accused the eastern bloc countries of and with that the term 'Free West' deserves to be quoted.

It is up to us, those living in the western alliance countries to try to keep the authoritarians at bay and no, I'm not only talking about Trump. I'm talking about the Communists (who call themselves 'democratic socialists') taking over the "democratic" party, the the "woke right" (for lack of a better term, i.e. right-wingers who adopt progressive-style shaming, tribalism and purity tests to defend distorted conservative values [1]) attempting to make inroads, the authoritarians on all sides who see works like 1984 and Brave New World as instruction manuals, those who read Howard Zinn and believed all he wrote, etc.

[1] https://newdiscourses.com/2025/07/a-beginners-guide-to-the-w...

Bruh.

I do not give a shit whether it is the best. If one can be cut off instantly by whims of some algo with no recourse - thank you but I'll pass. Yes I still use Android phone but mostly as phone, GPS and camera all of which can be replaced.

I do not develop for Android or iOS exactly for the reason of not being in control. Stick to desktops, servers and browsers as deployment platforms