Is This Really What We Want?

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There are concerns in the united states about the location of these data centers and the kind of power that these companies can exert when they choose where to locate them. I was reading a story recently in new zealand, where there are proposals for like, a bunch of new data centrs, i believe, in the north of the country. There are all these concerns with having, with allowing these major companies that have this degree of power over really the internet. And people have criticised the p r c for being quite strict on this. But strategically, it makes perfect sense to say no to facebook. How do we make sure that this computational intestructure is serving our needs?

Paris Marx is joined by Dwayne Monroe to discuss what it’s like to work in a data center, how the cloud came to hold a dominant position, and the consequences of its control by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Dwayne Monroe is a cloud technologist and aspiring Marxist theorist of technology, with twenty years of experience architecting large-scale computational systems. Follow Dwayne on Twitter at @cloudquistador.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Dwayne wrote about cloud computing for Logic Magazine. He’s also written about a public cloud and the metaverse on his blog.
Amazon’s cloud infrastructure in the eastern United States experienced a major outage in December 2021.
Residents in various parts of the world have been questioning the logic of building data centers, including in the United States and New Zealand.
In July, the network of Canadian telecom giant Rogers went down, leaving millions without service.

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