Although if I were only thinking about the question I would answer "yes", I decided to put "no" because I fear where the discussion might lead: the question "Are we too dependent on US technologies" hides the intent, which I think is exaggerated and conspiratorial, that by using US technologies we are then under the control of another country. While this is entirely possible, and there have been cases of zero-day exploits used for espionage in the past, I don't see the point in believing or thinking that a company would want to risk losing its customers to favour its own country. It's madness, and if this were happening with every other foreign company, then one wouldn't be able to live peacefully. This idea only leads to unsettling people, making them live with suspicion, when in fact there are other worse issues to worry about. The ultimate risk would be that every person would only trust companies from their own country, but in the end, would the problem be solved? Do you think that those living in North Korea can actually trust their technologies just because "at least they're not made in the United States"?

We can see this in the field of information technology, particularly with the hegemony of Google and Microsoft. In terms of electronic chips, Europe and Switzerland are also lagging behind phenomenally. We can mention the significant dependence on Nvidia cards in the field of artificial intelligence.

On this subject, I always wonder about this inability to invest in these strategic technologies. Our country has two high-level polytechnic schools, industries whose precision and rigour are recognised worldwide, and banks that are sufficiently efficient and capable of investment. Where does this reluctance to take initiatives in cutting-edge technology come from?

Consumers are also to blame for the dependence on US IT products. Nearly 75% of PCs are equipped with the Windows operating system and 15% with Mac OS. Why? Because the average user chooses the ease and user-friendliness that they don't find on Linux. And I'm not even mentioning the Polish Qube OS.

As for search engines, the most used are Google and Bing. DuckDuckGo is also American. Qwant and Ecosia, European browsers, are very little known to the general public and it should be noted that they rely respectively on Bing and Google APIs (!)

And to date, the population seemed less wary of American products, despite the monitoring of activities, or even proven digital espionage linked to suppliers from this country.

More recently, the risks of using Russian software, such as Kaspersky antivirus or the Chinese TikTok platform, have been highlighted. On the other hand, I don't know many Swiss people who use Yandex or Baidu, which are no more secure than their American competitors.

We can only deplore the European and Swiss lag in all these areas.

In conclusion, it's not tomorrow that we will free ourselves from American technology.