LSN : Viewpoints : Welcome to The (Tech) Resistance

Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

The relationship between individual conscience and governmental responsibility seems weaker than ever. It’s a big topic, that’s for sure – but why does it matter to consumer-facing industries right now?

The possibility of a technocratic future is taking shape, leading to governments or social systems that are controlled or influenced by an elite of technical experts. As those ‘at the top’ of Western democracies become more disconnected from the will of the people and more answerable to the pace (and the owners) of technology, bottom-up movements are gaining ground in a bid to reclaim individual and collective agency.

In February 2026, US AI business Anthropic held out against the Pentagon’s requirements on using its models for military purposes, only to see it lose its contracts to OpenAI. In short, Anthropic said it didn’t believe existing rules were good enough to prevent the creation of AI-enabled autonomous weapons or mass surveillance – yet OpenAI did. It triggered talk of boycotting consumer-facing OpenAI products, such as ChatGPT. It is a developing situation – at a time of high uncertainty about the wider ethical use of AI, particularly by US-based companies.

‘We finally woke up to how dangerous the tech bros are and our response is deleting an app,’ wrote journalist Aya Jaff, author of Broligarchie, on Instagram. Jaff is one of many figures firing warning signals about digital infrastructure and how it must operate as a public utility.

‘We’ve been here before,’ wrote Jaff. ‘BP invented the concept of the personal carbon footprint specifically to shift responsibility from corporations onto individuals… We cannot let the same thing happen here. The real fight is about who owns the infrastructure, who writes the regulations and who sits at the table when the rules get made. [Greek economist and politician Yanis] Varoufakis calls it technofeudalism. We’re not customers, we’re serfs paying rent to digital landlords who’ve already bought the governments supposed to regulate them. Your deleted account doesn’t threaten that. Not even a little.’

The Scouse Oracle, UK

The signals around resistance – relating to both state-level and individual digital sovereignty – are pinging on our radar here at The Future Laboratory:

: In Switzerland, an anti-big-tech strategy is underway, involving spending more than £95.7m ($127.75m, €109.85m) on the Alps supercomputer and the Swiss AI Initiative, which, in September 2025, launched Apertus, the country’s first fully open and public large language model. The country has also rejected US company Palantir as a provider over fears the US government would be able to use it to access sensitive data (source: The Guardian). Also part of its plan for digital sovereignty is Euria, a AI assistant launched by Swiss provider Infomaniak in December 2025, promising data that never leaves Switzerland, models that are not trained on user inputs and a data centre in Geneva that recycles all its waste heat to warm thousands of homes

: In contrast, in the UK, accountability is falling to individuals in obscure corners of the web – such as the self-styled Scouse Oracle, who is painstakingly tracking government procurement and systems-building involving outsourcing to companies such as Palantir, which points towards the creation of digital ID by any other name – and without a public mandate

: In Germany, digital rights activist collective Chaos Computer Club is promoting digital independence days to stop what it considers to be a US chokehold on European democracy. Schleswig-Holstein is one of over a dozenGerman states attempting to ditch Microsoft tools in favour of open-source alternatives

QuitGPT is an organisation encouraging people around the world to quit ChatGPT, Global

Brandsnap is an app that helps you quickly check where a product comes from and suggesting European alternatives to encourage local consumption, Europe

: Elsewhere in Europe, where for too long the onus has been put on tech regulation as opposed to building its own tech stack, curated ‘tech swap’ lists and how-to-migrate guides are trending across forums and social media (source: Cybernews). They encourage the European choice over US tech products, often accompanied by images of Coca-Cola versus Fritz-Kola, or Crocs versus Birkenstocks

: The Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium was launched in December 2025 to build and share digital tools and infrastructure, aiming to strengthen European digital sovereignty as a matter of regional security. US firms dominate Europe’s cloud market, with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud controlling nearly 70% of market share (source: The Wall Street Journal). ‘If we do not act now to reduce Europe’s technological dependence on foreign actors, we risk becoming a digital colony,’ said Michał Kobosko, a member of the European Parliament (source: The Wall Street Journal)

: It’s not a uniquely European sentiment. In the US, tech publication Wired has entered is recalcitrant political era, as it carefully details how to evade government surveillance and offers guides on how to become a ‘digitalexpat’. The Wall Street Journal advises readers on how to ‘delete yourself from the internet'

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator by Norwegian Consumer Council, Norway

So what does this all mean for your brand or organisation today? Whether you realise it or not, your customer has already adopted an oppositional mindset – something we tracked in our New Codes of Value macrotrend as people look for alternatives to enshittified digital products and services, and crave moments of friction in the face of unsatiating convenience.

We’ve also tracked the implications for US brands – and for post-purpose branding in general – in our Branding in the Age of Elasticity report.

But this emerging resistance mindset is about reclaiming agency in a world where the pace of change is tumultuous. Today’s consumer carries the heavy weight of choice and responsibility, and the expectation on brands is higher than ever. Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer reveals trust in government has declined sharply, with developed economies ranking lowest on the Trust Index, while business has emerged as the most trusted institution globally (64% versus 53% for government).

You are no longer just a trust broker but a bridger of social divides, a promoter of stability and economic hope (when only 32% believe the next generation will be better off, according to Edelman), and a paragon of shared identity and culture in the war against polarisation.

If people increasingly expect brands to assume roles traditionally held by governments at a time when some governments are locking in our data souls and then selling them to the highest bidder, then ask yourself this: what is your ‘data contract’ with your customers?

*In June 2026, The Future Laboratory will publish its updated Global Drivers, capturing our longer-term outlook. Previously, this work has been part of our internal methodology, but we are opening it up to our intelligence platform partners. With each Driver, we will detail the value shifts each will usher in and how they could shape our future macrotrends, microtrends and, eventually, our daily lives.