Could you survive without Microsoft? Inside the costs of digital dependence

By Narmin Nahidi, Assistant Professor in Finance, University of Exeter

When I arrived at work to discover that Outlook had vanished from my computer, I wondered how I was supposed to get through my working day. No emails. No calendar. No meeting invitations.

Then another thought crossed my mind: when did we become so dependent on a single technology company that losing access to one application could disrupt our entire working routine? And what is the financial and environmental cost of that dependence?

We regularly discuss sustainability in terms of reducing…

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