Cloud computing centralizes power while promising distributed access
The cloud’s greatest trick was convincing everyone that centralization equals democratization. By moving computational power “to the cloud,” we didn’t distribute it—we concentrated it into fewer hands than ever before.
The rhetoric of access
“Your files, anywhere, anytime.” “Scale infinitely.” “Pay only for what you use.” These promises aren’t lies, exactly. They’re accurate descriptions of the user experience while completely obscuring the power structure underneath.
Cloud computing did deliver on its accessibility promises. A startup can now access the same computational resources as Fortune 500 companies. Individuals can store unlimited photos, stream 4K video, and collaborate in real-time across continents.
But access and control are different things entirely.
Three companies own the internet’s backbone
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform don’t just dominate cloud computing—they are cloud computing. Combined, they control over 65% of global cloud infrastructure.
This isn’t market competition. This is infrastructure monopolization disguised as consumer choice.
When Netflix streams to your device, it’s probably running on AWS. When you video call on Zoom, you’re using multiple cloud providers simultaneously. When government agencies process citizen data, they’re increasingly relying on these same three companies.
The entire digital economy now depends on infrastructure owned by three corporations.
Physical reality trumps digital promises
The cloud isn’t ethereal. It’s physical infrastructure: data centers, fiber optic cables, server farms, cooling systems. These require massive capital investment, specialized knowledge, and geographic presence.
Building cloud infrastructure at scale isn’t something you can disrupt from a garage. The barrier to entry isn’t just high—it’s prohibitive for all but the largest corporations and nation-states.
This physical reality creates natural monopolies, but we pretend market forces still apply.
Control disguised as service
Cloud providers don’t just rent you computing power. They control:
- What software you can run (platform restrictions)
- Where your data can be stored (jurisdiction and compliance)
- How you can access your own information (API limitations)
- When your services remain available (terms of service violations)
- Who can see your data (government requests, security breaches)
You don’t own anything in the cloud. You rent access to your own data and applications.
The sovereignty illusion
Countries proudly announce “digital sovereignty” initiatives while simultaneously outsourcing their critical infrastructure to foreign corporations.
European governments process citizen data on AWS. Asian financial institutions run on Microsoft Azure. African educational systems depend on Google Workspace.
Sovereignty requires control over critical infrastructure. You cannot be digitally sovereign while renting your computing capacity from foreign corporations.
Vendor lock-in as business strategy
Cloud providers design their services to be difficult to leave. They offer generous free tiers to get you started, then gradually make migration prohibitively expensive.
This isn’t accidental. It’s strategic dependence creation.
- Data transfer costs make moving large datasets financially painful
- Proprietary APIs require significant engineering work to replace
- Integrated services create complex dependencies across your entire stack
- Specialized tooling builds institutional knowledge around specific platforms
Once you’re in, leaving requires rebuilding your entire technical infrastructure.
The innovation paradox
Cloud computing did accelerate innovation—for a while. Startups could focus on their product instead of managing servers. New services could scale globally overnight. Experimentation became cheaper and faster.
But this innovation boost came with a hidden cost: structural dependence.
Now, “innovation” increasingly means building on top of cloud providers’ platforms using their tools, their APIs, their services. Innovation happens within their ecosystems, on their terms.
Independent technical capability atrophies when everything depends on external services.
Economic extraction at scale
Cloud providers don’t just rent computing power. They extract value from every layer of the stack:
- Infrastructure (servers, storage, networking)
- Platform (databases, analytics, machine learning)
- Software (productivity tools, collaboration platforms)
- Data (usage patterns, business intelligence, competitive analysis)
They see everything their customers do, learn from it, and often compete directly with successful use cases.
This isn’t just service provision. It’s systematic value extraction from the entire digital economy.
The compliance trap
Modern businesses can’t function without cloud services, but using cloud services means submitting to their compliance requirements, security policies, and jurisdictional constraints.
Cloud providers become de facto regulatory authorities. They decide what content is acceptable, what security standards apply, and what legal frameworks govern digital interactions.
This is governance without accountability. Private companies making public policy decisions.
National security as corporate strategy
Cloud providers leverage national security concerns to solidify their market position. They win government contracts by emphasizing security and compliance capabilities that smaller competitors cannot match.
But this creates circular logic: cloud providers become “secure” because they handle sensitive data, and they handle sensitive data because they’re considered “secure.”
Meanwhile, foreign governments and malicious actors only need to compromise three companies to access the majority of global digital infrastructure.
The alternatives that aren’t
“Multi-cloud” strategies and “hybrid” deployments are marketed as solutions to cloud dependence. In practice, they usually increase complexity while maintaining fundamental dependency.
Using multiple cloud providers doesn’t reduce centralization—it just spreads your dependencies across multiple centralized systems.
Self-hosting and “edge computing” are growing, but they remain niche solutions for organizations with specialized needs and substantial technical capabilities.
What we lost
Before cloud computing, computational power was more distributed by default. Companies owned their servers, governments controlled their data centers, and individuals could run meaningful applications on personal computers.
This distribution wasn’t efficient, but it was resilient. No single point of failure could crash the entire digital economy.
We traded resilience for efficiency and called it progress.
The real cost of convenience
Cloud computing’s convenience is real, but it’s not free. The cost is structural dependence on a handful of corporations that now control the basic infrastructure of modern life.
This isn’t a temporary market condition that competition will resolve. It’s the predictable outcome of infrastructure industries with high capital requirements and network effects.
We mistook technological capability for political neutrality. Infrastructure is never neutral—it embodies the values and interests of those who control it.
Recognition without romanticism
This analysis isn’t a call to return to pre-cloud computing. The efficiency gains and accessibility improvements are genuine. Small businesses can compete globally, developers can experiment freely, and users can access powerful applications from any device.
But we should recognize what we’ve actually built: the most centralized information infrastructure in human history, controlled by three American corporations, marketed as distributed computing.
Understanding this concentration of power doesn’t require rejecting cloud computing’s benefits. It requires honest assessment of what we’ve traded away and what that means for the future of digital autonomy.
The cloud delivered on its promises to users while consolidating control in ways that would have been impossible to achieve through direct regulation or traditional monopolization.
That’s the real innovation.
Axiology Media examines how value systems shape and are shaped by technological systems. This analysis focuses on structural power dynamics rather than advocating for specific policy responses.