The Coalition Forming Against Big Tech's Enshittification

Cory Doctorow's recent address at the 39th Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg landed like a lightning strike in a drought. His central thesis: America's geopolitical retreat under Trump has created an unprecedented opening to dismantle Big Tech's stranglehold. This isn't wishful thinking, Doctorow argues, but a strategic observation backed by shifting power dynamics and emerging coalitions. The door to disenshittification, he contends, is "open a crack."

The core vulnerability Doctorow identifies stems from Trump's tariff policies. By making U.S. market access unpredictable, Trump has undermined America's primary leverage—the threat of excluding foreign goods. For decades, the U.S. Trade Representative weaponized this fear to force nations into adopting anti-circumvention laws protecting tech monopolies. With that leverage gone, Doctorow sees space for "disenshittification nations" to emerge—countries rewriting digital rules to empower users and competitors over platform landlords. The economic incentive is stark: diverting even a fraction of Big Tech's "trillions into...billions" creates powerful allies hungry for change (Doctorow on Disenshittification Nations).

Crucially, this economic argument converges with two other powerful forces. National security establishments globally, Doctorow notes, are increasingly alarmed by dependence on U.S. tech giants. The risk isn't theoretical: an autocratic U.S. president could potentially disable cloud services, brick devices, or sabotage critical infrastructure worldwide via companies utterly beholden to executive orders. This fear mirrors earlier concerns about Huawei and 5G, but scaled across the entire digital ecosystem. Simultaneously, digital rights activists continue their long fight against surveillance capitalism and user-hostile platforms.

The potential coalition—entrepreneurs chasing opportunity, security hawks mitigating risk, and activists defending rights—forms a potent, if unconventional, trifecta. Each brings distinct leverage: capital and market pressure, political access within defense and intelligence circles, and grassroots mobilization. Doctorow stresses this isn't automatic: "Things happen because people do stuff" (Against the Great Forces of History). It requires recognizing the opening and acting.

Skepticism about political will is understandable. Decades of neoliberal policy and regulatory capture by tech giants breed cynicism. Doctorow counters with tangible proof-of-concept shifts. The European Union's accelerated pivot to solar energy post-Ukraine invasion—leapfrogging from laggard to leader—demonstrates how crises can shatter policy inertia (EU Solar Shift). Similarly, in deep-red Texas, attempts to mandate fossil fuel backups for solar were defeated not by coastal elites, but by conservative farmers and ranchers decrying "DEI for natural gas" (Bill McKibben on Texas).

Political landscapes are fracturing globally. Doctorow highlights the UK, where both the Conservatives and Labour face collapse. Reform, a MAGA-aligned party, threatens authoritarianism, but the Greens, under Zack Polanski, are mobilizing around a platform echoing historic Labour's ambition: trustbusting, climate action, and abolishing billionaires (Trustbusting Resurgence). This mirrors broader anti-oligarch trends surfacing since the late 2010s.

Counter-perspectives demand attention. Can such a diverse coalition hold? Entrepreneurs prioritizing profit might clash with activists demanding structural reform. Security hawks could push for nationalistic tech stacks over interoperable, user-centric models. The rise of parties like Reform underscores the risk that chaos empowers authoritarians, not reformers. Furthermore, Big Tech retains immense resources to lobby, divide, and obstruct.

Doctorow dismisses both pessimism and toxic optimism. His framework rests on hope as a disciplined practice: "the belief that if we change the world for the better, even by just a little, that we will ascend a gradient towards a better future" (Hope vs. Optimism). The "crack" isn't a guarantee, but an invitation. The EU proved rapid decarbonization was possible against entrenched oil interests. Texas proved even conservative communities reject forced fossil fuel dependence. The tools for disenshittification—interoperability mandates, data portability, antitrust enforcement—exist. Applying them requires mobilizing the emerging coalition around the shared understanding that the cost of inaction—economic stagnation, democratic erosion, and autocratic control via technology—is now too high to ignore. As Leonard Cohen sang, and Doctorow invokes, "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in" (Anthem Lyrics). The light is visible. The push must begin.