I already replaced quite a few of these sites and apps. I still waste lots of time here on the fediverse though 😅

Vivaldi for browser, Ecosia for search engine and AI, newspapers apps instead of Google news suggestions and Lemmy.

Fediverse users are already prepared greatly if something like this were to occur 😹

And I wish this would really happen

In terms of YouTube, I would use Peertube and Odysee or perhaps, GrayJay. Mastodon instead of Twitter, I don’t even need Facebook so nothing for Facebook, I’m a pirate anyways so I don’t even need Netflix, Amazon. I don’t need Apple in any way since I use Android. If there’s no existence of even an Android device, then I would either use a Linux Phone or just Linux on desktop. Brave Search or Mojeek or others instead of Google. Ask Brave (it’s American so I guess it’s not counted), Deepseek, Qwen etc. instead of ChatGPT. I don’t use Tiktok so nothing here. I would probably spend just a little bit less time on internet (mainly because of disappearance of YouTube). For me, not much would change other than the YouTube experience. I predict I would most likely watch TV channels more once again due to not finding enough enjoyable content.

Funny, but for me very little would change. The only one of those I use even occasionally is YT, and the videos would start appearing elsewhere. Peertube, maybe?

EDIT: Oh, I’d lose my steam library. That would be a nuisance!

I don’t use Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Apple, Google search, TikTok, or ChatGPT.

I use Amazon to order N95 masks a couple times per year but that can be done with other sites.

Twitter = Mastodon or Bluesky

Netflix = Torrent

Apple/Google = GrapheneOS if we are talking phone OS. Perhaps Linux if both companies are gone.

Google search = DuckDuckGo, Esonia, Brave

ChatGPT = I don’t trust any “AI” to give a factual answer.

Youtube = Odyssey, Bitchute, there is a video site in the Fediverse but the name escapes me at the moment.

So… Just like I already do today?

I suppose you didn’t mean litterally just those, but many American companies.

But of the ones you listed, sure I don’t really use any of them.

Tiktok? Really? Yuck. Facebook? Never have. Netflix? Do they even have anything good on anymore? Google? I haven’t used their search index long time. And so on.

My email has never been a major provider.

The same way we did it before those things existed or had taken over. Believe it or not, the internet used to be that way 👴

Most of those US services (YouTube, Twitter, etc.) arose to fill a niche which was opened by expanding access and bandwidth. Take YouTube as an example, the idea of sharing a video on a dial-up connection was simply silly. Just downloading the contents of a 1.44MB floppy on a 14.4kbps modem took forever. Even when we got to a 56kbps modem, pictures could still be slow and GIFs were painful to download. It wasn’t until home DSL or cable connections became common that sharing a video was even close to reasonable. In that environment, we saw the start of media sharing services rushing to fill a previously unknown “need”. The most well known was Napster for music sharing, but we also saw the start of bittorrent clients. While not exactly legal, early music sharing and torrent sites showed that people wanted to be able to download media. And with sites like MySpace or GeoCities cropping up, it was apparent that people wanted to also create and share media. YouTube simply married up those two desires at a time where the technology could reasonably support it. And they have massively capitalized on the first mover advantage. With them also having Google money to scale the service, they now sit in a fairly privileged position in their niche.

I bring this up to say that, were US based services snapped out of existence, new services would arise to fill the gap. If you look at somewhere like China, where access to US services is highly regulated, they aren’t simply doing without, they are creating their own alternatives. TikTok is a good example, while it lacks the longer form videos of YouTube, it did provide media sharing in China. Were YouTube to be blocked at the Great Firewall, TikTok is in a good position to expand into the longer form videos. China also already has WeChat which fills much of the Twitter and FaceBook nice. Russia has VKontakte for those spaces as well. Basically, any place which isn’t well served by US based media giants has their own solutions to fill those gaps.

Western Europe (using EU as shorthand, though yes I know the EU isn’t all of Western Europe) has the issue of being closely linked with the US economically and culturally. US based services can operate in most EU countries with little friction. Sure, they have to figure out GDPR and Data Privacy issues, but that’s not a major barrier, despite US companies’ whining. So, given the size, first mover advantage and money behind the US based solutions, there hasn’t been space for reasonable EU based replacements. Why use some second rate EU based system, when the US system works so well, and the EU and US are such good allies and closely linked?

Of course, that last bit is changing (which is part of why you’re asking the question, no doubt). With the US Government going quickly off the rails, and US tech giants doing their damnedest to enshitify everything, the deep cultural links between the US and EU are starting to slip. There might now be space for EU based services to try to step in and replace services like YouTube or Twitter. And that’s the answer to your question. If those services go away, they will be replaced by something else. In time, they are probably bound to be replaced anyway. At one time everyone though MySpace was here to stay, these days I suspect some folks had to google it to figure out what the hell I was going on about. It may be a long time to come, but I’d bet on YouTube eventually being replaced. I have no idea what will replace it, but nothing lasts forever.

We’re literally talking on Lemmy/Piefed right now, which would continue to work so I would just come here for recommendations on which search engines and websites to use as alternatives lol

Imagine there is no…

YT - dont use it. Don’t like video tutorials, I prefer to read them, don’t like adverts or propaganda!

no Twitter/X, no Facebook - not used them I over ten years

no Netflix, no Amazon - stopped using a few years ago

no Apple - never used

no Google to to search the Web - plenty of other search engines

no chatGPT - soon won’t be there for anyone!

I get my apps from F-droid, I read my web comics on websites, I send emails, I chat with my friends.

Does steam go in your scenario? In that case I imagine GoG will take over there!

You know, the only reason these companies have so much power over your government and so much of your money is they’ve tricked you that you’re missing out without them. 💁‍♂️

I’d use a different search engine… and the rest of those I don’t use now. That’s not the Internet to me. I read webcomics and blogs, check fora, and play online games. I go directly to the websites I want, or I use RSS to get there from my aggregator. Hell, I still use webrings.

🎵The internet is for porn.🎶

I feel like Zuckerfuck made this post for ideas on how to circumvent competition.

Happily.

In that world, what would you use the Internet for?

Pretty much the same as before?

The only giant tech firm from your list I am actively engaged with is Google Alphabet because of Android and YouTube. Apart from that, there is PayPal because of online payments and WhatsApp because of other people. But for both, I have 1:1 replacements already in place to be used wherever available.