As my children were growing, I could see that within a few years they and their friends would be wanting a mobile phone; they would want to use Internet services to chat, record personal videos and share experiences with friends. Like most parents, I had questions and concerns about the current state of big-tech products and services, about their exploitative business practices.
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These tech-stacks of exploitation were not really built by accident. They are wired into the business models of every tech company in the space; not a single one advances moral values over their shareholder value. And so I knew there was no way to get to have individual freedom and control from the current phone hardware or from its OS vendor (Apple or Google). I unfortunately knew there was no way to respect the digital civil rights of society by playing the silicon valley exploitation game.