From the Old Normal to a New Normal: Why Europe Must Reclaim Control of the Internet

 

How lock-in, surveillance, and trade policy converged — and why a narrow window is opening for Europe to act

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1. The Feeling Everyone Recognises

Most people today share a quiet unease about the internet.

They feel watched.
They feel locked in.
They feel that leaving a service, a device, or a platform would cost them their history, their contacts, their functionality — sometimes even their livelihood.

This feeling is often dismissed as paranoia, tech anxiety, or nostalgia for a simpler time. But it is neither irrational nor accidental. It is the rational response to a system in which users increasingly sense that they no longer have meaningful control.

Most people can describe the feeling. Few can explain why it exists.

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2. The Old Normal — What We Have Learned to Accept

Over the past two decades, we have gradually accepted a new “normal” online.

In this normal:

• You do not truly own digital products; you access them conditionally.
• Repair is discouraged, restricted, or made impractical.
• Alternatives exist in theory, but rarely survive in practice.
• Privacy depends on trust and consent banners, not real control.
• You are allowed to leave services — but doing so is costly and punitive.

This system did not arrive overnight. It emerged slowly, feature by feature, update by update, until resistance felt futile.

Europe treats this situation as neutral — as the natural outcome of technology and markets — even though most of its costs are borne by European users and businesses, while much of the value flows elsewhere. How did we/Europe arrive in this situation?  =>[How Europe Came to Enforce an Unwanted Normal]

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3. Why the Internet Feels Exploitative 

The dominant explanation for today’s internet focuses on consent: users clicked “agree,” so exploitation must be their responsibility.

This explanation is wrong.

The real problem is that refusal is not an option.

Users cannot realistically say “no” because:

• Switching services destroys functionality.
• Modifying tools to protect oneself is restricted.
• Alternatives cannot interoperate or scale.
• Exit means loss — of data, access, and identity.

When refusal is not an option, consent becomes a formality.
And when consent becomes a formality, exploitation becomes stable.

This is why fears about identity theft, surveillance, and misuse of personal data persist even under strong privacy regulation. The issue is not a lack of rules — it is a lack of bargaining power.

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4. The New Normal — Explained in Plain Language

In a New Normal, companies may still use software locks — but those locks no longer enjoy automatic legal immunity when they are used to block lawful behaviour.

Other firms are allowed to build products and services that work with what users already own, and those alternatives are allowed to survive rather than being shut down.

Repair becomes something people can actually do in practice, not just something permitted in theory, using independent repairers and tools without legal risk.

People are allowed to protect their own privacy using technical means — blocking unwanted tracking or modifying software behaviour — without being treated as criminals.

And most importantly, leaving a service becomes real: users can take their data, their history, and their functionality with them, instead of being punished for exit.

None of this requires trusting platforms to behave better.
It requires restoring the ability to choose, modify, and leave.

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5. Old Normal vs New Normal

Old Normal	New Normal
Software locks are automatically protected by law	Locks exist, but must survive competition and lawful challenge
Interoperability exists on paper	Compatible alternatives can exist and persist
Repair is theoretically legal	Repair is lawful and practical
Privacy depends on trust and consent	Privacy is enforceable through user-chosen tools
Exit is allowed but punitive	Exit preserves data, history, and functionality
Platforms degrade without consequence	Abuse creates real competitive pressure

The difference is not technology.
It is whether the law shields lock-in from challenge.

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6. Who Benefits, Who Pays — A Europe-First Reality Check

Under the Old Normal, the benefits and costs are not evenly distributed.

Who benefits:

• Firms that control platforms, identity systems, app stores, cloud infrastructure, and update channels.
• Firms that can impose lock-in and enforce it at scale.
• Predominantly non-European companies.

Who pays, Billions:

• European end-users, through higher prices, reduced choice, and permanent surveillance. 
• European SMEs, through blocked aftermarkets, restricted interoperability, and suppressed competition.
• European states, through dependency, reduced resilience, and loss of policy leverage.

This is not a neutral market outcome.
It is a legally protected concentration of power.

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7. Why the New Normal Is Necessary for Europe

Europe cannot avoid a structural choice.

It cannot simultaneously maintain:

1. Deep digital dependence
2. Legally protected lock-in
3. Competitive domestic capability

Europe’s economic strengths lie in engineering, integration, services, and small and medium-sized enterprises. These strengths depend on openness, interoperability, repair, and competition at the edges.

The Old Normal suppresses exactly these conditions.

The New Normal does not require Europe to build global mega-platforms. It allows European firms to compete where they are strongest — provided lock-in is no longer legally insulated.

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8. Why Now — The Window Is Opening

This is where the timing matters.

As Cory Doctorow has argued, the global digital order depended on a specific alignment:

• dominant platforms,
• exported legal protections for lock-in,
• and disciplined trade enforcement.

That alignment is weakening.

U.S. digital dominance is no longer unquestioned.
Trade enforcement has become more fragmented.
Coalitions are easier to form.

Cory Doctorow, in an argument taking Apple as example:
“All the EU has to do is repeal Article 6 of the Copyright Directive, and, in so doing, strip Apple of the privilege of mobilizing the European justice system to shore up Apple's hundred billion dollar annual tax on the world's digital economy. The EU company that figures out how to reliably jailbreak iPhones will have customers all over the world, including in the USA, where Apple doesn't just use its veto over which apps you can run on your phone to suck 30% out of every dollar you spend, but where Apple also uses its control over the platform to strip out apps that protect Apple's customers from Trump's fascist takeover.”

[Electronic Frontier Foundation; Pluralistic.net: The Post-American Internet; 01 Jan 2026]

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9. Repealing Anticircumvention Law — The Power Lever That Makes the New Normal Possible

Repealing or neutralising anticircumvention law does not redesign the internet.

It removes the legal shield that prevents it from changing.

Anticircumvention rules give software locks special protection even when they block lawful repair, competition, privacy self-defence, or exit. Removing that privilege restores the pressure that makes markets work.

This is not an attack on copyright or innovation.
It is the withdrawal of an exception that turned technical restrictions into permanent power.

Combined with trade policy, procurement rules, and competition enforcement, this repeal becomes the hinge that allows the New Normal to emerge.

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10. A Choice, Not a Fantasy

The Old Normal feels exploitative because it is structurally coercive.

Europe currently helps enforce it.
Europe does not have to.

A New Normal is technically feasible, economically rational, and politically defensible. A window exists to act — not forever, but now.

The question is not whether Europe can afford to change the rules.
It is whether Europe can afford to keep enforcing the old normal.