Digital Colonialism#
The new colonialism is not about land or resources. It is about data.
In the 21st century, data is the new oil. It is the lifeblood of the digital economy, the raw material that fuels the AI revolution. And just as the colonial powers of the 19th century sought to control the world’s oil reserves, so too are the tech giants of the 21st century seeking to control the world’s data.
The centralized AI infrastructure that they are building is the modern-day equivalent of the colonial trading post. It is a system that is designed to extract data from every corner of the globe, to process it in centralized “mega clusters,” and to sell it back to us in the form of AI-powered services.
The result is a new form of colonialism, a digital colonialism that is every bit as insidious and as exploitative as the old one. It is a system that is designed to create and perpetuate dependence, a system that will leave us poorer, weaker, and less free.
The High Cost of Convenience#
The appeal of the centralized model is its convenience. It is easy to plug into the services of a major cloud provider, to let them handle the complexities of infrastructure management, and to focus on your core business. But this convenience comes at a high price.
The price is vendor lock-in. Once you are dependent on a single vendor for your digital infrastructure, it is incredibly difficult and expensive to switch to a competitor. The switching costs are not just financial; they are also operational and strategic. You have to retrain your staff, to re-architect your applications, and to re-imagine your entire business model.
The result is a massive power imbalance between the vendor and the customer. The vendor has all the leverage, and they are not afraid to use it. They can raise their prices, they can change their terms of service, and they can even cut you off entirely if you don’t play by their rules.
The economic impact of vendor lock-in is substantial. It stifles innovation, it reduces competition, and it leads to higher prices for consumers. It is a tax on the entire economy, a tax that we are all paying, whether we know it or not.
A Declaration of Economic Independence#
The only way to break free from this new form of digital colonialism is to declare our economic independence. It is to pursue a strategy of “sovereign exit,” to build a parallel digital infrastructure that is decentralized, resilient, and under our own control.
A sovereign exit strategy is not about protectionism or isolationism. It is about creating a level playing field, a world where businesses of all sizes can compete on their merits, not on their ability to pay tribute to a handful of tech giants.
It is about fostering a diverse and vibrant ecosystem of technology providers, an ecosystem that is based on open standards, open source, and open competition. It is about building an economy that is not just prosperous, but also resilient and free.
The path to economic sovereignty will not be easy. It will require a new way of thinking about technology, a new set of policies and regulations, and a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. But the alternative is a future of ever-increasing dependence and of ever-diminishing freedom. It is a future that we cannot afford to accept.
Sources: [1] World Economic Forum, “How to ensure data sovereignty in the AI era”, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/how-to-ensure-data-sovereignty-in-the-ai-era/ [2] Geopolitics, “Digital Sovereignty: A New Battleground for Global Power”, https://geopol.uk/articles/digital-sovereignty-a-new-battleground-for-global-power [3] EconOne, “The Economics of Vendor Lock-In”, https://www.econone.com/the-economics-of-vendor-lock-in/