# The cloud is an unelected tax — "we need decentralization to avoid feudalism"

- **Speaker:** Greg Osuri
- **Attribution:** attributed
- **Said:** 2024-07-29
- **Theme:** Cloud Decentralization — https://www.gregosuri.com/predictions/cloud-decentralization/
- **Source:** More than Decentralised Compute \| Converge @ EthCC 2024 (Caladan)
- **Watch at:** 00:07:12 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPy-ZVjNU4U&t=432s
- **Canonical:** https://www.gregosuri.com/predictions/cloud-decentralization/2024-07-29-the-cloud-is-an-unelected-tax-we-need-decentraliza-6bac/
- **Cite as:** Greg Osuri, "The cloud is an unelected tax — "we need decentralization to avoid feudalism"," More than Decentralised Compute \| Converge @ EthCC 2024 (Caladan), 29 Jul 2024, 00:07:12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPy-ZVjNU4U&t=432s

## Quote — verbatim

> The a16z did a study... that said something like 50% of your money that you pay for online services goes to a cloud provider that you have no idea who it is. Compute is the fabric that holds a modern society together, and compute is foundation for AI. If you think that you're going to have to pay a tax to someone that you have no idea who it is, you're not elected — we used to do that when society was feudalistic. So we need decentralization to avoid feudalism, that's the simple answer. And we believe compute should be a common good; it should not be in the hands of few.

## Context — site annotation, not spoken

Answering "why do we need decentralized compute?" — his recurring feudalism framing plus the demand for permissionless access ("a world that I'm not willing to accept" is needing massive deals with cloud providers).