Subscriptions replace ownership
Work remains usable only while payment, authentication and vendor support continue. Cancellation and exit are designed as friction rather than ordinary product functions.
THE INDEPENDENT IT WALKOUT
The web needs
no permission.
Stop consuming, funding and sanctioning hostile Fortune 500 ecosystems. Build, publish, discover, install and pay without surrendering the relationship between maker and user.
NO APP STORE REQUIRED
THE MANIFESTO
They turned tools
into tollbooths.
The open web can remain technically alive while becoming practically invisible. Search becomes an answer engine. Installation becomes a warning. Payment becomes permission. Discovery becomes rent.
Google is not the movement’s name. It is one example. Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Apple and their peers reproduce the same captive ecosystems, language, branding and compliance machinery. The result is more approved slop and less independent creativity.
Nobody elected these corporations guardians of software, knowledge or culture. Safety does not require a private bureaucracy to own every doorway.
This is not a story about one bad product or one person’s tolerance. It is a market structure in which the same company can control the operating system, identity, store, payment route, browser defaults and terms of access—then make departure costly at every layer.
The answer is not a kinder gatekeeper. It is public, portable infrastructure and independent routes that no gatekeeper can revoke.
THE SYSTEM, NOT THE ANECDOTE
Different products.
The same enclosure.
Accounts become borders
A login created for convenience becomes the passport for communication, storage, professional relationships and purchases across otherwise unrelated services.
Feeds replace programs
Finite works give way to ranking systems with no natural stopping point. The platform selects what follows and optimizes the session around its own incentives.
The device becomes a tenancy
Bundled accounts, defaults, cloud services and recurring prompts turn a purchased computer into an entrance to the vendor’s wider commercial system.
Publishing becomes permission
App stores can govern review, ranking, installation, payment and the developer’s ability to point users elsewhere. A maker reaches an audience on terms set by its competitor and landlord.
The pattern is vertical control: capture the route, join services together, raise the cost of leaving, and describe dependence as convenience.
FOLLOW THE ATTENTION
The program disappeared.
The session got longer.
This is not the fake claim that humans suddenly acquired a 30-second attention span. The measurable change is structural: scheduled media lost ground while algorithmic feeds captured more hours, more often, in smaller pieces.
Average time UK adults spend online each day. More than half of all online time is now spent on services owned by just Alphabet and Meta.
Ofcom, 2025 ↗Average daily US media-and-entertainment time. The total is not expanding much; platforms are fighting to displace one another inside it.
Deloitte, 2025 ↗Compared with the average consumer, Gen Z spends about 50 more minutes daily on social platforms and user-generated content—and 44 fewer minutes watching TV and movies.
Deloitte, 2025 ↗Growth in US streaming use from May 2021 to May 2025. Over the same period, broadcast viewing fell 21% and cable fell 39%.
Nielsen, 2025 ↗YouTube’s share of all US television-set viewing in May 2025—the largest share held by any streamer.
Nielsen, 2025 ↗Growth in the share of US adults using TikTok between 2021 and 2025. Nearly one quarter of all adults now report using it daily.
Pew Research Center, 2025 ↗US teens who use at least one major social platform “almost constantly.” YouTube and TikTok are each daily habits for a majority.
Pew Research Center, 2025 ↗Rise from 2023 to 2024 in US teens saying they spend too much time on social media. Forty-four percent say they have tried to cut back.
Pew Research Center, 2025 ↗The systemic change
Television chose the program and its hour. The feed now chooses every next item and has no ending. We gained control over when we start, but surrendered control over where we stop.
WALK OUT, IN PRACTICE
Dependency is a choice.
Make it reversible.
- Publish on the web first.A real URL, usable without an app-store account.
- Own your audience route.Email, RSS, direct links and exports—not rented followers.
- Make installation optional.The product works before a platform blesses it.
- Keep identity portable.No compulsory Google, Microsoft, Apple or Meta account.
- Design an exit.Users can export their data; makers can replace every vendor.
MEMBERS STAND FOR
No permission to publish
Distribution is not a privilege granted by an app-store review queue.
No captive identity
Participation cannot depend on an account with a Fortune 500 gatekeeper.
No invisible lock-in
Dependencies, data paths and exit routes are stated plainly.
No monopoly on discovery
Direct links, human recommendations, RSS and independent indexes remain first-class.
No punishment for leaving
Export is complete, deletion is real, and switching is treated as normal.
People before platforms
Technology serves the relationship; it does not insert itself as landlord.
THE NO-APP-STORE ECOSYSTEM
Products that arrive
without a tollbooth.
SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE
Browse apps ↗Feline Union App Store
A searchable catalog where apps are URLs again: no compulsory account, captive installer, paid ranking, or permission to publish.
FOUNDING MEMBER
Open Lunch Bag ↗Lunch Bag
One weekday topic. Ten useful ideas. Five questions. A complete narrated capsule on the open web.
Independent projects can join whether or not they also appear in a corporate store. The requirement is a usable path that the store does not control.
DECLARE INDEPENDENCE
Put the route
back in our hands.
Add “Proud member of the Independent IT Walkout” to your project and link here. Document the dependency your project removes—and the route that now works without app-store permission, compulsory corporate identity or captive data.
Join the movement →