The power wielded by a handful of technology corporations is no accident; it is the result of societal overwhelm. Since the mass adoption of the internet and smartphones, the pace of digital development has outstripped every political and regulatory counter-movement. We privatised infrastructure without considering the consequences, entering into a dependency that now affects essential state functions. An analysis of the current ecosystem reveals this to be the outcome of decades of strategic consolidation. The way out requires no blind faith in technology, but rather political will and collective action.
The Architects of Power: A Network of Capital, Influence, and Narratives
The digital landscape is shaped by a small group whose influence extends far beyond their own companies. It is a dense web of rivalry, partnership, and shared investors, supplemented by sophisticated staging.
Jeff Bezos dominates not only retail with Amazon but also owns AWS, the backbone of large parts of the internet—including government and military data. Mark Zuckerberg controls the social space of nearly four billion people with Meta, thereby dictating public discourse. Elon Musk, once a co-founder of OpenAI, is now driving the development of autonomous systems and opinion formation with X (formerly Twitter) and xAI.
A central figure in this web is Sam Altman. As the face of OpenAI, he has steered the transition from non-profit research to one of the most powerful commercial AI empires. Yet the game of narratives is played even more subtly: Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has positioned itself through extraordinary PR skills as the “safe” and “ethical” counterweight. By framing “Constitutional AI” and emphasising responsible development, the company manages to win regulatory trust and preempt criticism while simultaneously scaling massively. This staging of safety often serves as a shield to consolidate market-dominating positions without facing the same resistance as more open competitors.
Peter Thiel also appears repeatedly in the orbit of these men: as an ideologue and capital provider, he links technology, finance, and politics, representing an attitude that utilises technological power detached from democratic control.
However, operating behind these visible figures is an even more powerful layer: the major asset managers. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—the “Big Three”—are principal shareholders in almost all tech giants, from Microsoft and Apple to chip manufacturers like NVIDIA. This structure creates a “silent consortium”. Although the companies compete in the market, the same financial investors sit at the helm. The competition is often merely a show; the primary goal is stabilising the system for profitability, not disruption.
The Architecture of Dependency: Five Levels of Control
The power of these actors rests on a massive structure of dependency that permeates all technical levels.
1. The Logical Monopoly (Cloud, AI, Operating Systems) At the infrastructural level, an extreme oligopoly reigns. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control about two-thirds of global cloud infrastructure. Our data, photos, and administrative processes reside on servers owned by just three corporations. In operating systems, the concentration is even more extreme: Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) share 98% of the smartphone market. They are the gatekeepers who decide which software we are allowed to use. This continues in artificial intelligence: only the hyperscalers possess the computing power to train modern AI models. Whoever owns the infrastructure determines the future of intelligence.
2. Socio-Political Control Meta and ByteDance (TikTok) rule global public discourse. Their algorithms decide which news is amplified and which remains invisible. This is not a neutral technical process but a business model based on the monetisation of attention. We are not the customers; we are the product.
3. The Physical Substrate – The Illusion of Lightness The term “cloud” suggests weightlessness. The reality consists of massive data centres and fibre-optic cables. Tech giants now finance or own around two-thirds of new subsea cable capacity. They control not only the data but also the physical pipes through which it flows. Whoever changes the routing influences the data flow or stops it entirely. The “cloud” is the solid property of a few corporations.
4. Raw Material Bottlenecks – A Geopolitical Vice Every device requires rare earth elements. Here, we find ourselves caught in a vice between two superpowers. China dominates the extraction and, above all, the refining of critical materials; up to 98% of the gallium essential for chips is processed there. Beijing’s state capitalism uses this as leverage. On the other side, the US instrumentalises its tech firms for foreign policy, notably through extraterritorial sanctions. Whether Chinese arbitrariness or American pressure, our access to critical technology depends on the grace of these powers. Added to this is the manufacturing bottleneck: 90% of the most advanced chips are produced by TSMC in Taiwan. This concentration makes everyone vulnerable to coercion.
5. The Financial Synthesis The entire ecosystem is underpinned by the “Big Three” asset managers. They hold stakes in tech firms, mining conglomerates, and data centre operators alike. Profits from every level of the value chain ultimately end up with the same few investors. It is a closed loop that subordinates national interests to global profit motives.
The Painful Truth: There Is No Individual Solution
There is no simple app that solves this problem. The power structures are too deeply rooted in the market and daily life. Private abstention is not enough; we need political decisions that force the market to open up. Essential infrastructures must no longer remain in private hands that are subservient to foreign powers.
The path forward will generate friction. Services may function less comfortably at first. We must abandon the notion that technology must always be cheap, easy, and convenient. Freedom has its price, and that price is often inconvenience. It requires the courage to sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term autonomy.
The Plan for Digital Sovereignty: Five Pillars of Emancipation
Concrete approaches must tackle multiple points simultaneously to break the oligopolies.
1. Financial Emancipation The most important lever is the flow of money. Billions from pension funds and sovereign wealth funds currently flow into the major asset managers that finance the tech oligopolies. These funds must be withdrawn and invested in local, ethical infrastructure. Public coffers should be legally obliged to divest from funds that exceed certain concentration thresholds. In the Global South, a new “Bank for Critical Minerals” could ensure that raw materials are processed locally rather than exported cheaply. This would break the power of Chinese refining monopolies and Western financial conglomerates.
2. Material Sovereignty Dependency on hardware must be replaced by domestic capacity. Resource-rich nations should ban the export of unrefined ore and build their own industries. In parallel, an “Open Silicon” initiative is needed: a global consortium (EU, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia) building open semiconductor fabrication plants dedicated to RISC-V, an open-standard chip design that breaks dependency on proprietary technologies. The goal is an alternative supply chain dependent on neither TSMC nor ASML. Furthermore, the “Right to Repair” must be enforced as a global standard; automated recycling could massively reduce dependency on primary mining.
3. Digital Infrastructure: The Third App Store The power of Apple and Google to decide on apps must be broken by law. A legally enshrined, free app store is required. The goal is not immediate mass adoption but a legal obligation: critical apps for banking, health, government services, and news must be available in this free, open store alongside the proprietary stores. This creates a parallel infrastructure that cannot be switched off. Should access to the major stores be denied or censored, a functioning, legally secured channel for essential services already exists. In parallel, governments must stop purchasing blocked standard hardware. Instead, they should procure large quantities of devices with free operating systems—from GrapheneOS and CalyxOS to PostmarketOS. This sends a strong market signal and forces manufacturers to open up.
4. Cultural Revolution: From Consumer to “Digital Mechanic” We must stop viewing technology as a magical black box. Education systems must teach how computers truly work: file systems, encryption, the difference between local storage and the cloud. The goal is a generation of “Digital Mechanics” who can repair, adapt, and master technology. Whoever understands the systems is no longer their product but their user. Digital sovereignty must become the new standard—not as a sacrifice, but because it is safer and more sustainable.
5. Geopolitical Architecture: A Coalition of the Willing No state can achieve this alone. A “Treaty on Digital Sovereignty” could bring together the EU, Switzerland, the African Union, India, and Brazil. The aim is mutual recognition of open standards, joint defence against extraterritorial sanctions, and pooled research. Only a bloc large enough can withstand the pressure of tech giants and their home states.
Conclusion: Freedom Is Political Work
The analysis is sobering: we have lost control to a small group of corporations and financial investors. Our critical infrastructures are privatised and thus exposed to the arbitrariness of foreign powers. The solution is demanding: we will have to sacrifice comfort and find the courage for political decisions that force the market to open up.
The alternative is not an option. Do we really want to live in a world where a handful of individuals—backed by complex financial networks and masterful PR narratives—decide our perception and our economic opportunities? Do we want to use our pension contributions to reinforce the power of financial cartels that, in turn, finance tech empires? Do we want to bow to the vice between an unpredictable USA and an authoritarian China?
The decision lies with us. We can continue down the comfortable path and relinquish control. Or we can choose the arduous path of self-determination—individually through conscious usage, but above all collectively by demanding laws that return the keys to our digital infrastructure to us. Freedom is not a feature one can unlock. It is a system we must build together.