Democracy is now played out in the technological choices we normalize. Accepting surveillance tools in the name of security is like draining the sea with a bucket: you don't get safety, you just get an ocean of control. Power consolidates when it convinces people to fear their neighbor's shadow more than the light that reveals it.

Changing course requires a radical shift in perspective: stop thinking of privacy as a privilege and start seeing it as a necessary ecosystem. Like clean air or drinking water, when it's polluted, it poisons everything. Our digital life is not separate from our real one; it's the same life, observed through a distorted lens.

Act where you can: support the alternatives. Use a browser that blocks trackers by default. Migrating from a dominant platform to an ethical one isn't a leap into the void—it's a step toward an internet that doesn't consider you the product.