Who holds the keys?
The more we rely on a few tools and a few platforms, the less free we are to choose. Technological dependence can be recognised, and avoided.
Updated October 2026
My point of view
A technology truly becomes ours when we can understand it, change it and, if need be, leave it.
A story as old as writing
In the myths of many peoples, fire is guarded by someone powerful and jealous who will not share it. For centuries writing was the privilege of a few scribes, until the alphabet put it within reach of many more people. The history of innovation is also the history of who controls access to it.
With artificial intelligence the question returns on a global scale. Three companies, Amazon, Microsoft and Google, run almost two thirds of the planet's cloud infrastructure. The most advanced chips come from a supply chain concentrated in a few Asian countries, the most powerful models from a small number of labs.
How to recognise dependence
In companies I often see the same path. A tool is chosen because it is the most convenient, then data, processes and skills take its shape. After a few years switching costs so much that nobody tries any more, and every renewal goes through without discussion. Four questions are enough to see where you stand:
- Can the data be exported in a format other systems can read?
- What happens if the provider changes prices, terms or model?
- Would the work done so far survive a change of platform?
- Inside the organisation, does anyone know how it really works?
Sometimes the best way to turn an invention into a real innovation is not to own it, but to give it away.
From Un perché alla volta (translated)
The keys can be kept
Dependence is not destiny. It is avoided by designing the way out from the start: open standards, portable data, more than one provider where it matters, open-source models when the task allows, in-house skills. Rules help too. With the Data Act, Europe requires cloud providers to make switching to a competitor easier and, from January 2027, to stop charging for it.
History offers encouraging precedents. The web, the three-point seat belt and the polio vaccine came to belong to everyone partly because the people who invented them chose not to lock them away.