4 May 2022

Are you Google or Microsoft? WhatsApp or Signal? The incompatibility driven by Big Tech obstructs research and teaching, so Europe’s mooted Digital Markets Act may be good news Forty years ago I “fixed” my first computer. My teachers gave me the responsibility of “helping” connect two computers that wouldn’t talk. Pushed into installing classroom computers under ambitious digital literacy policy, they were out of their depth. Unable to understand why something seemed “broken”, they naturally turned to the support of the nearest 12-year-old. Flattered, I got to be the smart kid who solved problems that confounded adults. And I am grateful; it set me off as a computer scientist.