The internet loves extremes.
Self-host everything, or trust the cloud with your whole life.
Reality sits in between.
Digital sovereignty isn’t about purity. It’s about leverage — knowing which parts you own and which you rent, and not being hostage to either.
You don’t realise how fragile your digital autonomy is until you cross a border.
What felt like control at home can vanish under customs inspection, roaming charges, or laws that see your devices as evidence.
Sovereignty isn’t just what you build — it’s what survives scrutiny abroad.
Most people’s digital lives are on their phone.
Most people’s phones are controlled by someone else.
Apple and Google decide what runs, what’s tracked, what’s patched.
Digital sovereignty doesn’t stop at the desktop; it has to fit in your pocket.
Most people treat digital sovereignty as a problem for the living.
But control isn’t just about today.
At some point you won’t be here, and someone else will have to deal with the system you’ve built.
Owning your identity doesn’t mean never trusting anyone.
Sometimes you need to log into shared systems — work, school, community projects.
Federation can be useful, but it doesn’t have to be surrender.
Most people don’t know how many accounts they have.
They only find out when one gets breached.
Digital sovereignty starts with awareness: what exists, where, and what it can break.
Most people treat identity as a service someone else runs for them:
Google handles your email, Facebook holds your social graph, Apple stores your keys.
Lose access and you lose yourself online.
Digital sovereignty means running your own identity stack — or at least knowing how you could.
Digital sovereignty doesn’t stop at your country’s border.
If all your services, backups, and identity live under one legal system, you’re betting that system will always work for you.
That’s not resilience. That’s wishful thinking.
