Who owns your digital footprint?

A lot of the problems on the internet stems from the fact that we don't own our data online.

Everything from the actual data we generate on sites (think: posts, snaps, messages, photos) and the metadata associated with them (like: when and where you posted from, who you messaged and how many times) are all stored on the servers of companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon. Seriously, check the Terms of Service, they own it.

We generate 11.08 petabytes of data each second and it's all currently hosted (i.e. stored) for us for free. These companies invest a lot of money building the infrastructure to store this data; while making it available at our finger tips from anywhere in the world.

Why is this bad?

Our time on these sites are parceled and sold to the highest bidder who then places their ads in our field of view as we browse the internet. This is why all of these sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and services like Google, Maps and Alexa are free.

These companies mine the data we generate online; they mine our browsing habits and follow us across the internet just to understand us a little better to show us an advert for a product that we are barely more likely to click on.

Why is this the status quo?

This is the state of our digital world because we live in a world where there is no option but to rely on tech companies to host our data on our behalf. For this they extract a steep fee.

Reflecting on the state of the internet today, one of the creators Sir Tim Burners Lee lamented,

For all the good we’ve achieved, the web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas.

Tim is not alone in recognizing this problem; there are many well funded teams working, over the last few years, on building a public cloud storage layer that we all can use to pay for our storage needs.

There is a new paradigm that's emerging. The pandora's box has been opened. Glimpses of a new world has been revealed to humanity.

One where we have sovereign rights over our data. In the future, we will pay to host our data and we will decide which website gets to access it.

This new world will look starkly different from the one we see today.