Over the past few years, I have found myself paying closer attention to my own instincts while working in technology, especially inside large organizations. Nothing dramatic happened. The work was solid. The people were smart and well intentioned. But something felt increasingly misaligned. The direction of the work, the incentives behind it, and the outcomes it optimized for no longer matched my own principles.
It became harder to justify putting my design and engineering energy into systems that primarily exist to reinforce lock-in, extract value, and deepen dependence on platforms that are already massive. Project by project, the work felt less like building useful tools and more like contributing small improvements to systems that were designed to grow regardless of who they served.
That tension is what led me to think more seriously about Small Tech.
What is Small Tech?
Small Tech is not anti-technology. It is not anti-progress. If anything, it is about taking technology seriously enough to ask who it serves, who controls it, and who benefits when it succeeds.
For me, Small Tech means principle-driven software. Software where the values come first, and everything else follows from that. Community ownership. Clear data control. Accountability. Limits. Not as marketing copy, but as design constraints. In Small Tech, principles are not aspirational. They are non-negotiable.
I have been working with an organization that applies modern AI language models to support smallholder farmers in regions like India, Eastern Africa, and South America. These are farmers working with limited resources, constrained connectivity, and devices that are often outdated or unreliable, yet doing work that is essential to their families and local economies.
The software is designed to meet people where they are. Many of the people using it do not think of themselves as “tech users,” and they shouldn’t have to. The interface favours simple interactions like text, voice, and photos instead of complex dashboards or dense workflows. The goal is not to teach people technology, but to make technology quietly useful in the context of daily work.
Small Tech is not about staying small for the sake of it. It is about staying accountable.
That work reinforced something important for me. Technology itself is not the problem. Tools are neutral. Incentives are not. When powerful tools are applied with care, humility, and respect for context, they can genuinely help people who are often overlooked by mainstream platforms.
Why AI Matters Right Now
This is why conversations about AI so often miss the point. They swing between hype and fear. Either AI is the future of everything, or it is an existential threat. The reality, for me, is more grounded. AI lowers the barrier to building software. That leverage can be used to build bigger platforms, or it can be used to build smaller, more focused tools for real communities.
For the first time in a long time, small teams can move fast without massive capital. That matters. Small Tech is about using that moment intentionally.
Principles Over Momentum
It also means admitting that as product creators and engineers, we have more agency than we like to pretend. We make choices. About stacks. About dependencies. About infrastructure. About where money flows.
With cDox, I tried to make those choices explicit. I leaned toward Canadian and European technology where possible. Tools like PHP and Svelte are mature, capable, and well understood. They are not trendy defaults, but they get the job done. Choosing them is not about nostalgia. It is about resisting the idea that serious software must always sit inside the same handful of ecosystems.
These choices extend beyond code. cDox uses a small hosting service based in Montreal called KeepSec. That means money flows back into a local economy instead of disappearing into a global platform balance sheet. If cDox succeeds, its revenue supports real people, in real places.
Constraints, Not Features
On the cDox landing page, the principles are stated plainly. We will never sell your data. You control your data. You can leave. These are not features. They are constraints. They shape what the product can become, and just as importantly, what it will never become.
This is what I mean when I say Small Tech.
It is not about staying small for the sake of it. It is about staying accountable. It is about building software that remains legible, understandable, and human as it grows. It is about choosing sustainability over domination, and clarity over abstraction.
Small Tech also supports a healthier technology ecosystem. When we always default to the biggest platforms and the most popular frameworks, we concentrate power whether we mean to or not. Choosing smaller tools is one way to keep that ecosystem diverse and resilient.
A Better Path Forward
None of this is free. There are trade offs. Things can be slower. Some services cost more. You do not get infinite scale handed to you. But those trade offs are the point. They force you to be intentional.
Small Tech is a reminder that builders still have agency. That we can choose principles over momentum. That we can apply powerful tools in ways that actually help people, instead of quietly making things worse.
Small Tech is not a retreat from the future. It is a return to the original promise of technology. Small Tech is good tech.