Even the EU initiative Wero requires Google or Apple. You can't even use it on a desktop pc and you're not even allowed to have developer options on. Ridiculous. I've never seen any app that is so strict.

American here who values individual liberties greatly. I know things are politically tense at the moment, but I’m not sure I understand this popular contemporary sentiment.

I’ve always believed governments and companies should be regarded with fairly low trust, and the behavior of big tech companies and some recent government actions are great examples why.

But what disappoints me a bit about this moment is (the perhaps inevitable?) response to nationalism with more nationalism.

Just as I didn’t seek to punish the EU over authoritarianism in Hungary and Poland, I feel the current moment has many responding to the symptoms instead of the sources of the problems. This is not a defense of policies I believe concern you, it’s a question of priorities.

I think the author of the article got it right. Because in addition to privacy, I believe one should be able to navigate the internet freely without a mandate to do business with monopolistic dominant companies, which includes rights like ownership of your data.