After the Cloud Giants: Building for Public Digital Infrastructure - CommunityInternet

The foundation course. It explains why depending on a few cloud providers creates lock-in, rent extraction and surveillance risk, then explores the business models that open up when infrastructure is publicly governed. Startups learn to design products that run on any cloud and can move without being trapped.
Core reading: The Rulers, chs. 7–9 and 12; Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con (on interoperability); Ben Tarnoff, Internet for the People.

Course Content

Part 1: Diagnosing Corporate Power

Lesson 1: Who Rules the Digital Economy?

Lesson 2: Intellectual Monopolies: How Knowledge Becomes Power

Lesson 3: Capture by Design: Credits, Venture Capital and Open Source

Part 2: The Cloud and Its Traps

Lesson 4: The Cloud as Landlord: Rents, Marketplaces and Hegemony

Lesson 5: Lock-in and How to Escape It

Lesson 6: Networks as Weapons: Geopolitics and Digital Sovereignty

Part 3: Building the Alternative

Lesson 7: Public Clouds, Data Commons and Research Institutions

Lesson 8: Mission, Governance and Democratic Planning

Capstone: Venture or Advisory Plan for Public Digital Infrastructure

About Instructor

DrRon Suarez

32 Courses

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