The Infrastructure of Control
Technology isn’t a tool anymore — it’s infrastructure. It’s how we live, work, move, pay, speak, and exist. You need it to function in modern society. And the more we depend on it, the more dangerous it becomes when that access is conditional.
Can you get a job without internet? Buy groceries without a debit card? Apply for housing without an email address? In some cities, you can’t even get the cheapest bus fare without a smartphone. Across the world, governments and businesses are moving away from cash. In Sweden, cash is used in less than 9% of daily transactions. In India, mobile payment apps dominate everyday commerce. In cities like New York and San Francisco, card-only establishments are becoming the norm. The message is clear: if you’re not digitally connected, you’re increasingly invisible.
And yet, the systems that mediate that access are privately owned, unaccountable, and often predatory.
Let’s talk about EULAs — End-User License Agreements. They’re the fine print you blindly accept to use your phone, your bank app, your cloud storage — basically, your life. Most people don’t read them. That’s not an accident. These documents are written to shield corporations from responsibility, not to protect users. The terms can change at any time, and if you disagree, you lose access.
Apple’s recent capitulation to the UK government proves the stakes. Under pressure from the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, Apple disabled its Advanced Data Protection feature — a setting that gave users end-to-end encryption of their iCloud backups. It only applied to UK users, but the precedent is chilling: when power knocks, privacy folds. And you’re never consulted.
What happens when the thing you rely on to store your memories, access your accounts, and communicate with the world can be turned off, just like that?
This isn’t limited to cloud storage or photos. It’s happening in finance, too.
Globally, 1.4 billion people still live without a bank account. In the U.S., nearly 6 million households are unbanked, and millions more are “underbanked,” relying on expensive workarounds like payday loans or check-cashing services. And it’s not because they’re irresponsible. It’s because they’ve been priced out, filtered out, or ignored.
Regulations like KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) are supposed to prevent fraud and criminal activity. But in reality, they often block people without stable documentation, like unhoused individuals, immigrants, or the poor, from opening accounts. Add the $40+ compliance cost per new user, and banks have every incentive to exclude.
Fintech was supposed to change that. Instead, it put the same barriers behind prettier screens.
Now your access to money depends on whether your app is compatible, your phone is charged, your selfie matches your ID, and your behavior doesn’t trigger a security flag. You’re not onboarded — you’re screened. And once you’re in, you’re monitored.
Every transaction, every search, every location ping becomes a data point. Platforms say it’s to “improve your experience,” but in practice, it’s to predict you, sell you, and shape you. The moment you enter these systems, you become the product. Your habits, your preferences, your trustworthiness — all calculated and packaged for monetization.
And if your behavior becomes inconvenient to the platform — politically, financially, or socially — your access can be throttled, suspended, or erased. You don’t have to break the law. You just have to become unprofitable.
This is how people get digitally exiled — not for crimes, but for misalignment. This is how control works in the age of infrastructure.
So let me be clear about what I want.
I want a world where access to money, information, and communication is treated as a right, not a reward. I want a digital and financial infrastructure that is open, accountable, and built around human dignity, not user retention. I want tools that include people, not screen them out.
That means:
Public digital wallets that don’t require perfect paperwork or a smartphone.
KYC/AML reform that protects both security and accessibility.
Interoperable systems that break corporate lock-in.
Privacy that’s protected by law, not buried in a settings menu.
Terms of service written in human language, not legalese designed to confuse.
I want regulators to act like regulators, not brand ambassadors. I want governments to stop begging tech platforms for favors and start reclaiming public oversight over systems that now define citizenship, labor, and survival. And I want the people building these systems — engineers, economists, designers, policymakers — to ask themselves a basic question: Who is this for? If the answer isn’t everyone, start over.
Milton Friedman once warned that both government and private monopolies threaten the consumer. In 2025, the line between the two is blurry. What we’re facing is the monopoly of infrastructure itself — a handful of private companies owning the rails of modern life.
I'm not okay with that. You shouldn't be either.
You shouldn't need to sign away your rights to join society. You shouldn't lose your agency because you lost your phone. You shouldn't have to scroll through 38 pages of fine print to prove you deserve access to your own life.
Because if we don’t act now, the future won’t be stolen all at once.
It’ll be licensed away, one silent update at a time.