The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms

Evidence

But it is becoming worryingly apparent to America’s rulers that China’s cloudalists have already acquired a power that US cloudalists are struggling to emulate: the power stemming from a successful merger of cloud capital and finance – or cloud finance. … This is technofeudalism-with-Chinese-characteristics. Since its emergence, it was only ever going to be a matter of time before the geopolitical struggle for hegemony between the US and China would divide the world into two, conflicting, super cloud fiefs. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 582 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Web 2.0 discourse demonstrates what is called “digital exceptionalism,” the idea that the internet is different from other forms of communication and therefore not bound by the same legal and market forces. … During the mid-1990s, “cyberspace” was frequently conceptualized as a sphere separate from daily life. This “disembodiment hypothesis” suggested that internet communication freed people from their earthly bodies, allowing for pure communication unfettered from discrimination. Theorists like Sherry Turkle and Sandy Stone hypothesized that digital communication could transcend structural power relations like sexism and racism. (Research instead indicated that internet communication reflects the power relations of the people communicating.) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 58 (#expands, via linked claim)

Some might celebrate the power of the internet to subvert capitalism and decentralize cultural production, but this power means little if a handful of corporations control the entire infrastructure of data appropriation and use. The internet, which originally represented a rejection of mass media, is being remassified. On a regular day, Netflix and YouTube account for half of all internet traffic in the United States, with massive implications for their ability to “buy” and distribute content for money or otherwise. The one-to-many model of mass media dissemination has simply been replaced by a many-to-one model, not the democratic many-to-many model we once hoped for. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 175 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cloud finance gives Chinese platforms a power Americans cannot match — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 582; Internet communication reflects rather than transcends offline power relations — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 58; The internet’s early borderless promise gave way to jurisdictional fragmentation — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 2314 (+3 more)

Related

• Global internet power is concentrated in a secure US-Chinese corporate duopoly. (similarity 0.90)
• Cloud finance gives Chinese platforms a power Americans cannot match (similarity 0.84)
• The internet’s many-to-many ideal collapsed into a many-to-one structure (similarity 0.80)
• China operates a self-contained cloud empire as advanced as the West’s (similarity 0.79)
• China’s cloudalists are fused with state functions that Silicon Valley lacks (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cloud finance gives Chinese platforms a power Americans cannot match #exemplifies (0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 582
• Internet communication reflects rather than transcends offline power relations #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 58
• The internet’s early borderless promise gave way to jurisdictional fragmentation #complicates (0.75) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2314
• The internet’s many-to-many ideal collapsed into a many-to-one structure #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 175