Hello Sifted reader,

If a tech journalist leaves their laptop for five minutes, they inevitably return to find a new startup in their inbox claiming to have democratised some big swathe of life.

You’re all at it. Fintechs are democratising access to investing. Spacetechs are democratising access to galaxies far far away. Someone’s democratising access to tractors that WhatsApp you about tillage. You can’t finish a chocolate bar without a founder popping up to democratise meditation. And on it goes.

The expression “we’re democratising access to X” usually has one meaning when used by a company: “We’ve made something slightly easier for you to buy.”

Clearly I’ve entered the “old man yells at cloud” phase every journo slips into — or maybe I’m just inspired by editor Amy’s broadside on unicorns — but we need to retire this busted bit of jabber. And in any case, as far as I can glean from horrified gawps at political chat in the US, Israel and Hungary, maybe democratising access to things is outdated anyway?

Don’t feed the vast cloud of blah. You’re hurting the ecosystem (a term, by the way, that deserves a take-down article of its own).

It’s time to let democratise die in darkness. Here are some ideas to replace it.

— Éanna Kelly, contributing editor

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