Two Swissinfo journalists tried cutting ties with US tech giants. Here’s what happened. Most of our digital lives – from photos to passwords and personal documents – are stored somewhere in Big Tech’s cloud infrastructure. Almost every interaction with the outside world, whether private or professional, passes through a handful of US companies. Two Swissinfo journalists, Kristian Foss Brandt and Sara Ibrahim, decided to cut the cord with Big Tech and embarked on a journey towards digital independence. They started with the basics: computers, email, phones, cloud services and AI tools. They imagined the process would involve a few simple switches – one service out, another service in. In reality, it felt more like pulling roots out of dry soil: possible, yes, but slow and messy. They soon found themselves living in a kind of parallel world where mobile payments stopped working, work tools broke down, and they were locked out of services they had used for most of their lives. The …