The Core Idea
Technology should empower people - without making them dependent on those who control it. That is the conviction everything else follows from.
We are not against companies, and we have no ideology about the economy. What we care about is this: that the people who use technology keep choice, control, repairability, interoperability and a real way out. Technology must not be a trap - not even a comfortable, profitable one.
What Digital Sovereignty Actually Means
Digital sovereignty is not a buzzword. It is a set of practical questions:
- Can I take my data with me?
- Can I switch providers without losing what matters?
- Can I repair the hardware I own?
- Can I change or replace the software I run?
- Am I permanently tied to one platform?
- Can I leave a service without losing my identity or my data?
If the answer to most of these is "no", you do not own your technology - you rent a dependency.
The Digital Cage Is Real
We increasingly live in a digital cage. Most people never notice, because the bars are comfortable. The cage is built from everyday things:
- proprietary systems and closed data formats
- missing interoperability between services
- platform lock-in and forced accounts
- hardware that cannot be repaired
- cloud dependence disguised as convenience
- services with no real exit option
Each of these alone is a minor annoyance. Together they quietly remove the choice to leave.
Progress Without Control
Technology has massively expanded what we can do. But our control over it has not grown at the same pace. This is no nostalgia for a romanticized past - earlier decades had planned obsolescence, monopolies and aggressive practices of their own. The point is structural: as systems became more complex and more centralized, power over them concentrated in fewer hands, while most people gained convenience and lost real say.
The Political Dimension
Digital freedom is not only a market question. It is shaped by laws and policies, and we follow these closely - critically, but not party-politically. The examples we are watching are concrete:
- Chat Control and similar mass-surveillance proposals
- mandatory or far-reaching ID verification
- centralized digital identity systems
- regulation of encryption and surveillance
- restrictions on anonymity and privacy
Our perspective is always the same: does this decision strengthen privacy, freedom, security, anonymity and the ability to leave a system - or does it deepen dependence and surveillance?
How We Approach It
We treat open source, open hardware and decentralization as means to self-determination, not as goals in themselves. They are not automatically good - open projects can have their own problems, and we want to talk honestly about trade-offs instead of romanticizing them.
At the same time, we want the control and freedom of open, decentralized systems combined with the simplicity people expect from commercial products. Digital sovereignty must not mean everyone becomes a Linux administrator or a self-hosting expert. It means having the choice. It means people can actively shape and control their technology - not merely consume what closed systems hand them.
The Question We Ask
Whatever we build, promote or evaluate, we ask one question: Does this technology give people more agency, or does it make them more dependent on those who control it?
We want a digital world that is free, sustainable and built around people. Not a world you are locked into - a world you can always leave.