Title: Cloud Serfs: How Internet Giants Have Made Us Digital Vassals In the feudal world of medieval [[Europe]], serfs laboured under the rule of lords who owned the land they worked on. Their labour enriched the ruling class, while they themselves remained bound to a system they could not escape. Fast forward to the present day, and the digital realm has birthed a new kind of feudalism: the rise of cloud serfdom. As [[Cory Doctorow]] and others have warned, the infrastructure of the modern internet—dominated by a handful of tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft—has created a system where individuals and businesses alike are tethered to corporate-controlled “clouds.” These clouds are not ethereal spaces of freedom but highly centralised and proprietary systems designed to lock users in, surveil their activities, and extract ever-growing rents. The Rise of Digital Feudalism The concept of “the cloud” was sold to us as a way to simplify and empower. Instead of maintaining local servers or owning software outright, we were promised the flexibility of remote storage, seamless software updates, and scalability. However, the reality is that these platforms have come to dominate the very infrastructure of our lives. Take, for instance, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which powers a staggering percentage of the internet. AWS offers convenience but at the cost of dependence. Small businesses, startups, and even [[Government]] systems rely on it to such a degree that a single outage in AWS’s servers can disrupt global economies. The same is true of Google’s dominance in [[20-80 Rule and slowing down|productivity]] software and Apple’s iron grip on its app ecosystem. In this world, users are no longer “owners” of the tools they rely on. You don’t own your music library on Spotify, your movies on Netflix, or even your own personal files stored in a cloud service. Instead, you rent access, under terms dictated entirely by the [[Corporations]] who [[Control]] these platforms. The Mechanics of Serfdom Doctorow has often discussed the issue of “interoperability”—or rather, its deliberate absence. In a healthy digital ecosystem, you should be able to move freely between service providers, much like rotating crops on different fields. However, tech giants create walled gardens, making it difficult to transfer data or switch platforms without incurring significant costs, lost data, or locked-in functionality. This lack of mobility mirrors feudal land tenure. A serf could not easily leave their lord’s domain, just as today’s user cannot easily migrate their digital assets without losing access to them. Surveillance as Rent Extraction Beyond mere dependence, cloud serfdom also involves constant surveillance. Just as lords monitored their serfs’ [[Productivity]], today’s internet giants track and monetise everything we do. Data is the new rent—extracted from every click, search, and purchase we make. The billions of dollars these companies rake in annually are built on the wealth of information they harvest from us, often without our full understanding or consent. Can We Escape the Cloud? The situation is dire but not hopeless. Movements advocating for decentralisation, open-source technologies, and digital sovereignty are working to break this feudal system. Decentralised cloud platforms, self-hosted services, and blockchain-based alternatives offer potential escape routes. Governments are also stepping in with antitrust measures and privacy regulations, though their effectiveness remains to be seen. Doctorow’s own advocacy for “adversarial interoperability”—a system where companies are compelled to make their products compatible with others—could loosen the grip of the digital lords. By forcing platforms to play nicely with competitors, users could regain some of the freedom they’ve lost. Conclusion The digital age was supposed to liberate us, but in many ways, it has bound us more tightly than ever before. The dream of the open internet has given way to a system where a few corporations rule over vast digital territories, while we, the users, toil under their ever-watchful eyes. Breaking free from this system will require collective action, technological innovation, and a reimagining of what ownership and freedom mean in the digital era. Until then, we remain cloud serfs, paying rent with our data and our dependency. `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:`