Against Platforms

Surviving Digital Utopia (Activist Citizens Library)

By: Mike Pepi

Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon

A bold and imaginative critique of the hidden costs of digital life—and a manifesto for a better future . . .

At the turn of the millennium, digital technologies seemed to have immense promise for transforming our society. With these powerful new tools, the thinking went, we would be free to live our best lives, connected to our communities in ways full of infinite potential.

A quarter of a century on, this form of utopianism seems like a cruel mirage. Our lives are more fragmented and pressure-filled as ever, as we race to keep up with technologies that manipulate, command, and drain us at every turn.

So what happened? In Against Platforms, technologist and creator Mike Pepi lays out an explanation of what went wrong—and a manifesto for putting it right.

The key, says Pepi, is that we have been taught that digital technologies are neutral tools, transparent, easily understood, and here to serve us. The reality, Pepi says, is that they are laden with assumptions and collateral consequences—ideology, in other words. And it is this hidden ideology that must be dismantled if we are to harness technology for the fullest expression of our humanity.

©2025 Mike Pepi (P)2025 G&D Media

Debunks common techno-utopian shibboleths

Also offers a peek behind the curtain of how platforms came to be the dominant organizational form of our time.

Platforms eat institutions alive from the inside.
Institutions may not be perfect, but we can intervene in them in ways that will never be possible with platforms.

Democracy, culture, and our humanity are at stake. It’s time to decide whether we exist to serve technology or whether it exists to serve us.

Relevant, clear, and accessible

Thought-provoking and understandable. A rational voice of reason prevails in this critique of modern techno-capitalism. I appreciate a sense of realism about the possibilities and risks of online platforms and the systems that surround them.