It all comes down to distribution.
We need actual software like https://Matrix.org or https://qbix.com/platform to be good enough that people will install it. Like the Web Browser did killed AOL and MSN. Otherwise we will live with Facebook Google etc. and this is moot. But that is just the beginning.
Secondly, we need open source hardware. We are nowhere close to competing with Apple and Android. But as we have seen over the last 20 years - there is a war on general purpose computing and the closed systems have started to win. Just today I read that Android doesn’t let you take a screenshot of your own phone.
Third of all - the open distribution mechanisms you rely on today to not block you (eg web browsers) can be closed or ship updates with backdoors tomorrow to most users. Apple and Google together control most of the market. It isn’t hard to pressure them to do this.
Apple blocked blockchain dapps being distributed on iOS, unless they are made by an Apple developer whose app they can revoke. Amazon can yank your movies and books out of your hands.
Anything you think is secure (eg secure enclave) may not be. Trusted Computing Environments are made by two companies essentially.
In fact, I am surprised that more “stuxnet” attacks arent done in nuclear reactors across various countries. As self driving cars get hooked up to the net or delivery drones become ubiquitous we may see massive vulnerabilities that can be exploited all at once. Not just by state actors but anyone. Really scary stuff.
Sadly the same entities locking down the computing devices also start requiring uplinks to their servers and can push any updates. Regular people are at the mercy of corporations and the state.
Unless open source companies step up and build a decentralized hardware distribution infrastructure, with multiple actors (like VOIP relaced centralized telephone switchboard operators) all these arguments are moot. There is a handful of tech companies whose arms need to be twisted and that’s all.
PART II:
To be honest ... I no longer think that end-to-end encryption is the right solution to human rights problems. If citizens are reduced to sneaking around and denying their activities to survive, their governmental system is way past due for fixing. This is like the “good slave owners” delaying the abolition of slavery. You’re solving the wrong problem.
I believe that crypto is needed to secure decentralized byzantine fault tolerant systems like Ethereum etc. to be TRUSTED, not to hide information. Signatures, not encryption, if you will. If anything, it is the government who doesn’t want encryption to be broken (eg of copyrighted DVD content etc.) and there is an inherent contradiction since anyone who consumes unencrypted content can reshare it.
What we really need is to decentralize the personal data in many places, and use zero-knowledge proofs for attestation, but that is different than encrypting and hiding information.