For the past 25 years, a few of us have been concerned about the degree to which countries like Aotearoa NZ have become increasingly dependent on the technologies controlled by a handful of massive corporations in the US that we refer to as BigTech. Our businesses, schools, health system, civil society, and even our democratic processes are increasingly digitally mediated, and all of them are entirely controlled by these corporations.
A few of us, with strong digital skills and an inherent interest in technology, have been actively working to break our own dependence using a parallel universe of software not created or controlled by US Big Tech: libre software, also known as open source or 'free' software.
We've long advocated for our country to regain our digital self determination with libre software, but unfortunately, for many years adopting libre software was only realistic for that small percentage of us with suitable skills and sufficient motivation. All the commercial focus has been dominated by those using and reinforcing the control of Big Tech.
Today, with the constant media drumbeat swooning over 'AI', the integrity issues of the US government and its Big Tech oligarchs, and the general instability of our world with war, climate change, economic hard times, and the very dubious role of mainstream social media, things are shifting. The global dependence on Big Tech is making people uncomfortable, both in society in general, and increasingly in government.
Governments, like the European Union, are now actively investing in untangling their entire apparatus from decades of total dependence on Big Tech, a process which will take decades and vast expenditure that will be resisted with everything the powerful Big Tech lobbies can throw in the way. The big question is this: what can countries migrate to?
Luckily, over the past decades, communities - not corporations - have, without fanfare (thanks to non-existent marketing budgets), been building powerful alternatives to Big Tech software, powered by passion rather than venture capital.
This global group of digitally skilled folk dedicated to securing their own digital liberty - thus the name libre software - have been driving these communities. But the advance of these tools has been slow, but ever forward. The influence of Big Tech has been too strong, had too many resources, and the motivation of the market to break its dependence too weak, and susceptible to lobbying, for those few advocating a digital counter movement to achieve critical mass. But in recent years, Big Tech has been pushing its advantage too hard, and the phenomenon of its 'enshittification' is now evident to most computer users.
A couple of us here in Aotearoa NZ here see the increasing pressure to free ourselves from Big Tech dominance as an opportunity. We have decided to create a release valve for society: to convert our skills and decades of experience in achieving our own digital liberty into something to help those NZers willing - but not currently able - to disentangle themselves. We call it Magnificent, and goal is to help NZers achieve something that recent generations have never known: digital independence, digital empowerment, digital sovereignty.