Data Centers: Power-Hungry Giants
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The Gist
- Data centers. Draining resources and straining communities, data centers consume vast water and electricity, often at the expense of local needs.
- Community and employment. Data centers offer minimal job opportunities, adding little to local economies while heavily using local resources and causing pollution.
- What can marketers/CX pros do? Know where your customer data is hosted and is going.
Who would not want to be Big Tech? They make massive, massive margins. They pay practically no taxes. They design trashy products that are useless after a couple of years and cannot be repaired. I mean, how many iPhone models have we had since 2007?
Let’s take a look at data centers. Marketers and customer experience leaders should take heed of the growing public scrutiny around the environmental and societal impacts of data centers, as illustrated by the issues of resource consumption and community strain. Marketers and customer experience leaders can differentiate their brands by proactively addressing these concerns, demonstrating corporate social responsibility, and fostering a more sustainable, community-focused approach to their operations.
Data Centers: Swindling Resources, Community Impact
The latest great Big Tech technology swindle is data centers, and this is particularly surreal. Data centers are absolutely terrible for any community they’re located in. They’re big ugly box monsters. They gurgle down vast quantities of fresh water. The suck up massive amounts of electricity.
They get this electricity and water at knockdown prices with cast iron guarantees. If there is a natural disaster, the community can go without lights and without water, while at the data center, the lights will always stay on and the servers will keep drinking happily away.
Related Article: 90% of Data Is Junk and Terrible for the Environment
Data Centers: Few Jobs, High Pollution
And what exactly do they bring to the community as benefits? Practically zero jobs. One of the worst employers you could imagine. Not just that, data centers take so much electricity and water that it is harder for others to get a good supply. They are noisy and polluting.
Related Article: Calculating the Pollution Effect of Data
Governments Woo Big Tech with Tax Breaks
So, you would think: not exactly an attractive proposition. You’d be so wrong. Governments everywhere fall over themselves trying to give them tax breaks. Big Tech sure has the big bag of magic tricks. Government policymakers and politicians everywhere go weak at the knees at the very idea of being able to casually drop into a conversation that next week they’re going to have lunch with a Google executive. It makes them feel so cool, so innovative, so forward looking and totally on the money. When all that Google or Amazon executive wants is the tax break, the tax break, the tax break.
Related Article: Does Big Tech Have Too Much Power?
Amazon’s Alleged Greed and Worker Exploitation Critiqued
How greedy can you get? Bigger profits than the oil industry and it’s still not enough. Amazon seeks to outdo all others for its sheer cruelty and devouring voraciousness. It is injuring more than 40% of its workers by driving them incessantly. It describes its workers as “industrial athletes.” Jeff Bezos loves 14-hour shifts for those who work in his warehouse and in his home. He is reportedly so relentlessly cruel that he won’t give proper bathroom breaks. One of his maids filed a lawsuit, claiming they didn’t get access to a proper bathroom. Before suing, they claim they were forced to climb out a window to go to a bathroom.
Big Tech’s Cruelty Masked by Slick Propaganda
This is the world Big Tech has built. Behind all the slick, futuristic propaganda, it is run by greedy, cruel men, who every year get greedier and crueler. Meanwhile, society champions, celebrates and honors the Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg tech bros. Our governments, instead of reining in this abuse, are feeding and legitimizing it, throwing tax breaks at it.
“There is something about an Amazon data center that drives state and municipal officials to make mindboggling financial decisions,” Jose Marquez writes for Real Clear Markets. What on earth could that be?
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