Chapter 7: The Digital Enclosure Movement
Just as the commons of England were once seized through Acts of Parliament, transforming shared land into private property, so too has our digital commons been systematically enclosed. This Digital Enclosure Movement represents not progress but a deliberate transfer of power from individuals to corporations, perhaps the most significant redistribution of control in modern history.
We experienced a remarkable but brief golden age of computing autonomy. From the early personal computers of the 1980s through the early 2000s, we possessed machines that were truly ours. They ran software from local storage, processed data on hardware we controlled and stored results on media we owned. The relationship was clear: the user commanded, and the machine obeyed. No permission was needed, no connection required, no surveillance happened.
This autonomy wasn't accidental but arose from the technical and economic constraints of the era. Network connections were intermittent and slow. Processing power existed primarily on local machines. Storage was physical and tangible. The economic models for perpetual value extraction hadn't yet been perfected. These limitations created a space where genuine personal computing could flourish, where 'personal' meant ownership in the fullest sense.
The enclosure began subtly. Internet protocols that once ensured open communication gave way to proprietary platforms. Applications that once ran locally migrated to distant servers or needed constant internet connection. Updates that were once optional became mandatory. Ownership transformed into rental. Each step was presented as progress, convenience, efficiency, connectivity etc. while obscuring the profound power shift taking place beneath the surface.
Consider your smartphone, an apparently personal device yet governed by terms you cannot negotiate, running software you cannot inspect, communicating through channels you cannot verify, collecting data you can't even access yourself. The illusion of ownership persists while actual control has been enclosed, claimed by distant corporations whose interests diverge fundamentally from yours. You may possess the physical object, but its soul belongs to its true masters.
For everyday users a current example of this enclosure appears most visibly in repair restrictions. Consider Apple's systematic campaign against the right to repair, using proprietary screws, gluing components together, pairing parts to specific devices through software, and restricting access to repair manuals. When your screen cracks or battery degrades, you cannot freely repair what you supposedly own. These aren't technical necessities but deliberate design choices that transform ownership into a limited license. The message is clear: you may possess the device, but Apple maintains control over how you use it, when you can repair it, and when you must replace it.
In networking and computing infrastructure, this enclosure has been achieved using unnecessary complexity. Systems like Kubernetes, which promise to simplify container management, actually create labyrinths so complicated that only certified specialists can navigate them. What was once straightforward server administration now requires an entire priesthood of devops engineers. This artificial complexity serves not users nor average workers but those who control the systems, establishing dependencies disguised as technical necessity. When a technology requires 'specialist priests' to interpret and maintain it, power has been transferred from users to technological priests aligned with corporate interests.
This enclosure occurred not through physical force but through the subtle oppression of artificial dependencies, engineered obsolescence, and manipulative interfaces. Each individual choice, to use an enslaving service, to accept opaque terms, to surrender data for convenience seemed small and reasonable in isolation. Yet collectively, these choices constituted a wholesale transfer of digital freedom from individuals to corporations.
Resistance begins with recognition, seeing the enclosure for what it is rather than accepting the narrative of technological 'progress' and it continues with reclaiming ownership of our tools. Value simplicity over unnecessary complexity and use things that are comprehendable instead of ofuscated in their function, manipulating or controlled by their creators.
The enclosed digital commons can not be freed through rejection of technology but through conscious choices about which technologies deserve our embrace. Each time you choose a tool to use or create something that tool should respect you and not make you dependant on it, that way it is possible to collectively reclaim a small piece of the commons that has been taken. This reclamation, multiplied across millions of users and workers making similar choices, represents our best hope for restoring true personal devices and computing that serves human flourishing rather than corporate extraction.