So... What's your solution?
>Just as countless governments and empires have over the past half millennium, the major cloud providers will paint these investments as an altruistic effort to bring vital infrastructure, services, and jobs to underserved regions. And if it stopped there, that might be alright. But in reality the cloud providers are motivated by their desire to get more customers for their products.
In other news water is wet, the sky is mostly blue and nights are mostly darker than days. Most producers of goods or providers of services (whether they're companies, merchants or individuals) are trying to make money by providing goods and services to people who need them! Heck, the local plumber will not come and fix my faucet from an altruistic impulse to fix my house's necessary infrastructure etc. He'll want paying, the egotistical dastard! He'll also try to do good work in the desire to get more customers for his products! Imagine this!
>Microsoft aims to bring internet service to 100 million Africans within the next three years and is working with Viasat to reach some of the most remote residents.
I'm flabbergasted that the author tries to spin this as being a bad thing on the whole. Looks to me like a terminal case of ideology trumping good sense. As far as I can see, 100 million Africans (including some of the most remote ones) getting internet access can only be good for them and for the entire world. Yes, Microsoft et. al. will make a profit - but from the tone of the article, it looks like the author will rather have those Africans go without internet access altogether than have them get access to GMail or Amazon services.
The article looks to me a (really poor) attempt at anti-cloud provider spin. The only glimmer of an argument is the complaint about stifling local competition. It's a bad argument, of course, because there is no such thing as local competition. It's like the author argues for forbidding electricity in the UK because it would have a negative impact on the local jackalope population - there are no jackalopes in the UK, nor meaningful local cloud providers in Africa. Developing a cloud provider requires a lot of available capital, a lot of know-how, a favorable legal framework, political stability, large and relatively cheap power sources and many other things. How many of those exist in Africa - or even in Latin America?
Now, a more interesting discussion would be the reason why there are no global European cloud providers - Europe has the know-how, the capital, the political stability, and, despite the recent Russian shenanigans, it has available power sources large enough to support big data centers - moreover, local providers would have fewer problems with storing and processing personal data of European citizens. I don't know why there are no big European providers (as yet?).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
