"Balkanization" is the wrong way to view this. This is waking up the regulatory arm of the government that has been asleep at the wheel. And it should have been done over a decade ago.
The better analogy is a forest fire. We're clearing up the overgrowth (ossification, unfair taxation, and unfair control) and creating room for new life to start and flourish.
> I indeed choose not to download software from Facebook and friends, but it’s quite likely others will need to as it will become the only way to get their software. At that point: tracking out the ass.
Don't like a negative externality? Tax and regulate it. It's what Europe does. And it's what we're good at doing in every industry except for the software industry. We need to stretch those muscles and get back into the habit of doing it.
We should pass regulations on giant social media companies as well.
But in a world where we have no software freedoms and where certain software tracks us, having software freedoms is the more important cause and it's where we must start our battle. You don't need to use Facebook, but you need to use a smartphone. New social media apps are started all the time (TikTok, Tea, etc.) but smartphones are trillion dollar moats.
Our smartphones are our gateway to digital life. They need to be liberated from Apple and Google. Mobile computing belongs to all of us.