I made a sarcastic post about Spotify Wrapped last week. A friend asked why I use Qobuz instead. As I tried to explain, I realised I'd been making similar choices for years without recognising the pattern: Mistral over ChatGPT. Proton over Gmail. Local repair over replacement.
None of these felt like activism. They felt like common sense.
Then I wrote about war economics, and people asked: "What can I actually do? I'm not a policymaker or CEO."
Fair question. So I started mapping the alternatives: European companies turning "this is stupid" into "this could work."
It led me from Qobuz to Mistral AI. From The Ocean Cleanup to Carbyon. Then to Lightyear's solar cars and Notpla's seaweed packaging. Then to dozens of European companies I'd never heard of, all solving problems everyone else had accepted as inevitable.
Each one started with someone refusing to accept the default. I realised I'd stumbled into a pattern: small acts of defiance against extractive systems.
This article is my attempt to show you what I'm seeing. And to answer the question from my war economics piece: "What can we actually do?".
What hit me as I finished writing: I've spent 3500 words celebrating the cleanup crew.
So, it ends with an uncomfortable truth about what we're really celebrating when we praise these "innovations." That postscript is worth the read alone.