this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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There's a perspective that some technologically literate people have (not all of them, certainly) that enables them a clearer view of what is going on re: tech oligarchs. That is how much we rely on other people's computers. Most people don't think about what is going on when they browse a website or post something on social media, set up their own shop on squarespace, sell a product on Amazon, stream music or TV or movies or games.
Giant tech companies own it all. They own the computer you use to do all these things. They own the computers other smaller businesses use to run their companies. You invented a product and want to drive your cart to the market square? Pay a tax to King Bezos, the market square is Amazon. Did you make a game? Pay Gaben and you can sell it at his marketplace. Don't wanna use these marketplaces? Wanna set up your own shop? You still have to use Amazon's, or Microsoft's, or Google's computers.
These tech oligarchs are more like feudal lords -- enclosing lands (computers) and charging the peasants and merchants access to them.
Digital feudalism... I suppose that does make it easier to call up large armies of peasant levies when you need to wage an information war.
Right... But the digital feudalism seems to be well into transformation into regular feudalism and regular people don't seem to notice.
I work in startups like many of us and forget I can see the code in the matrix sometimes. Even 20 yrs ago working in IT infrastructure VARs, I knew tech was just the toolset for business functions.