Tech Reflections: Today’s Invisible Tech Dependency

By Jeremy Abram · JeremyAbram.net

Modern life quietly runs on layers of hidden dependencies—cloud services we don’t see, identity systems we don’t control, firmware we never touch, and platforms that can change under our feet. This piece maps those layers, shows how they fail, and offers practical ways to build personal and organizational resilience without rejecting convenience or progress.

1) What do we mean by “invisible tech dependency”?

Invisible tech dependency is the gap between what we believe we rely on (“my phone,” “my laptop,” “my favorite app”) and what we actually rely on (CDNs, DNS, identity providers, payment gateways, firmware, spectrum, energy grids, undersea cables, and the policy/legal scaffolding that keeps each running). These layers are designed to be seamless—until they’re not.

Why it’s invisible:

Abstraction by design. UX is optimized to hide complexity; “one tap” masks dozens of remote calls.
Cloud everything. Local software became a “thin client” to remote infrastructure.
Auto-updates & managed services. We stop thinking about versions, lifecycle, and end-of-support.
Identity centralization. “Sign in with X” collapses many doors into one lock.
Ubiquitous connectivity. We design assuming “always online,” often with no graceful fallback.

2) The dependency stack (from the glass to the ground)

Think of your daily tech as a stack:

Interface layer (what you touch): phones, laptops, wearables, smart speakers, cars’ infotainment.
Local compute & firmware: OS, drivers, secure enclaves, TPMs, BIOS/UEFI, baseband firmware.
Application layer: apps, browsers, PWAs, extensions, plugins.
Platform layer: app stores, SDKs, push notification services, feature flags, ad/analytics SDKs.
Identity & trust: OAuth providers, SSO, MFA, device attestations, certificates.
Data & logic in the cloud: databases, queues, caches, object storage, model endpoints, search indices.
Distribution & reachability: DNS, CDNs, BGP routes, load balancers, DDoS protection.
Connectivity & transport: Wi-Fi, cellular networks, ISPs, IXPs, undersea cables, satellites.
Energy & physical world: power grids, batteries, chargers, substations, diesel backups.
Legal/policy/market rails: payment networks, app store policies, export controls, right-to-repair laws.

Any point can fail. Because most are hidden, we tend to prepare only for visible failures (e.g., a cracked screen) and ignore upstream risks (e.g., identity lockout or a CDN outage).

3) Everyday scenarios that reveal the hidden rails

Paying for coffee: Tap-to-pay depends on the terminal’s OS, the merchant’s POS, the acquirer, the card network, tokenization services, and live internet. One flaky router and you’re digging for cash.
Driving with maps: Navigation works until GPS signal is blocked, the app can’t fetch tiles, or your account is locked. No cached maps? You’re guessing at the next exit.
Smart home unlock: A cloud-dependent deadbolt fails when the vendor API is down. Your mechanical key is the real disaster recovery plan.
Freelancer invoices: If your account with a hosted invoicing platform is flagged, your receivables freeze. That’s platform risk, not a bookkeeping mistake.
Two-factor fatigue: Lose the phone or get SIM-swapped and suddenly your bank, email, and tax portal become inaccessible.

Lesson: convenience aggregates single points of failure unless we design counterweights.

4) Failure modes to keep on your radar

Identity chokepoints: SSO or social logins that gate access to many services.
Cascading outages: CDN/DNS issues ripple to apps that were “working fine.”
Silent deprecations: An API or SDK version changes; features vanish or break.
End-of-life (EOL): Hardware becomes unsupported; updates stop; security debt rises.
Vendor lock-in: Data exports are incomplete; switching costs become prohibitive.
DRM & tethered functionality: Purchased devices/apps requiring constant server checks.
Algorithmic gatekeeping: Rankings, risk scores, or moderation rules that can throttle reach or transactions without clear recourse.
Energy assumptions: A power flicker exposes every non-battery-backed dependency.

5) The human layer: attention, agency, and learned helplessness

Invisible dependency isn’t only technical—it’s psychological:

We outsource memory (contacts, navigation, birthdays) and lose analog fluency.
“Set and forget” defaults steer behavior (subscriptions, privacy settings, notification volume).
When systems fail, our confidence drops faster because we haven’t practiced alternatives.

The antidote is not to romanticize a pre-digital past, but to rehearse resilience: small, deliberate exercises that keep muscles warm.

6) Power & economics: who benefits from opacity?

Concentration of control in platform ecosystems creates leverage over developers, merchants, and users.
Rents (fees, rev-share, ad take rates) become invisible taxes embedded in every transaction.
Default bundling nudges us into walled gardens—convenient, but brittle when the garden gate jams.

Understanding these structures helps you negotiate, diversify, and choose partners with clearer exit paths.

7) A resilience framework (individuals & teams)

A) Map your dependencies (30–60 minutes)

List the 5–10 services you use daily. For each, note: identity provider, data location, offline mode, export options, support/SLA, single points of failure, and the “analog or local” fallback.
Draw arrows to show upstream vendors (payment, email delivery, SMS, push, CDN).

B) Reduce the blast radius

Separate identities: personal vs. business emails; separate admin accounts; avoid one SSO ruling all.
Use app-specific passwords and hardware security keys for critical accounts.
Keep read-only backups and immutable snapshots where possible.

C) Design graceful degradation

Prefer tools with local-first or offline capability (notes, docs, maps, password managers).
Cache essentials: offline maps, boarding passes, authenticator codes (with secure backups).
For web projects, use progressive enhancement so basic features work without JS or with spotty connectivity.

D) Build redundancy thoughtfully

Two payment rails (e.g., card + PayPal or backup processor).
Two connectivity paths (home broadband + cell hotspot).
Two power buffers (portable battery + small UPS for modem/router).

E) Practice recovery

Quarterly tabletop drills: “What if our identity provider locks us out?” “What if the CDN fails?”
Keep a runbook: how to rotate keys, restore from backup, roll back a release, switch DNS, or move payment providers.

8) Personal dependency checklist

Passwords & MFA: Use a reputable password manager with local export options; enroll two hardware keys (store one off-site).
Offline essentials: Download offline maps for home/regular travel; keep scanned IDs and emergency contacts in an encrypted offline vault.
Documents: Maintain a simple “Fail Kit” folder: insurance, medical info, banking instructions, critical phone numbers—synced and exported to a local encrypted archive.
Payments: Carry a physical card and a bit of cash; know how to pay if NFC is down.
Power & connectivity: Small UPS for modem/router; phone power bank; know your phone’s tethering settings.
Smart home reality check: Ensure every critical function has a non-cloud fallback (keys for locks, physical switches for lights).

9) Organizational playbook (creators, startups, small businesses)

Inventory & SBOM-lite: Track third-party SDKs, libraries, and APIs; note version and EOL.
Identity firewall: Separate production admin accounts; conditional access; least privilege; break-glass accounts stored offline.
Data portability: Regularly export core data (customers, orders, content) to a neutral format; test restores.
Multi-region thinking: If feasible, host critical assets across regions/providers; at minimum, rehearse DNS/CDN failover.
Observability: Health checks that also alert when dependencies (identity, payments, email) fail upstream.
Vendor clauses: Negotiate sunset policies, export guarantees, and SLA credits; document your switching plan.

10) Metrics worth tracking

MTTR for identity incidents (lockouts, resets).
% of core workflows that function offline (goal: at least “read” paths and critical “write” paths).
Data export freshness (days since last successful, verified export).
Single-vendor concentration (revenue or usage reliant on one platform).
Recovery test cadence (tabletop + live restore frequency).

11) Policy ideas (the macro layer)

Right to repair & right to modify: extend useful device life and reduce forced obsolescence.
Interoperability mandates: practical data export/import requirements; standardized identity hand-off.
Outage transparency: public postmortems and minimum standards for customer notification.
Sunset roadmaps: reasonable EOL timelines, with migration tooling and escrow for essential features.

12) Design principles for builders

Local-first by default; cloud-accelerated where it counts.
Progressive enhancement and retry-friendly interactions.
Dependency budgets (like performance budgets): For each release, limit new third-party reliance.
Clear failure states: explain what’s wrong and how to proceed offline.
Export buttons everywhere; import paths documented.
Rate-limit coupling: avoid hard dependencies on volatile upstream quotas.

13) Reflection prompts

Which three services, if revoked or locked, would most harm my day or business?
Where am I assuming “always online” without a fallback?
If I lost my phone at 9 a.m., could I still access money, identity, and navigation by noon?
What would “minimum viable operations” look like for 48 hours offline?

14) A practical starter plan (90 minutes, once)

Map & mark your top 10 dependencies.
Secure identity: add a second hardware key; print recovery codes; store safely.
Cache offline: maps, key docs, authenticator backup, emergency contacts.
Power & net: plug modem/router into a small UPS; confirm phone tethering works.
Export & test: take a clean export of your password vault and one critical platform; verify you can read it.