When You Own the Backbone
When you own the infrastructure, you should do your best to keep people on it. Amazon is reportedly looking to offer free or heavily discounted cellphone service. At some point, Amazon will have worldwide satellite Internet coverage and within the next few years, the technology will likely be available in all major devices.
With so many applications running on AWS, Amazon could also offer a renewed version of the Fire Phone that could allow for more distributed computing in exchange for a free device. It could then move users over to its own Internet.
While speed and affordability would be a boon for many consumers, ultimately, such a system would be completely closed and lack any of the values of freedom and openness we appreciate on our regular Internet.
Consolidation is natural in many markets. Through consolidation, costs can be lowered and services scaled. The consumers and the companies benefit. However, when it comes to certain technologies, we need to be vigilant that we’re protected.
AI tools and the means to communicate must be open or their might be unintended runaway consequences. The benefits of these technologies might end up accruing to a smaller and smaller group.
