Last month’s AWS outage did more than interrupt chats and scramble payment systems. It reignited a political argument that has been simmering for years: whether cloud platforms have become too essential to be left in private hands. In the U.K., calls for digital sovereignty resurfaced almost immediately.

A friend sent over an interesting article by Ross Haleluik that opened with "Why it’s not just power grid and water, but also tools like Stripe and Twilio that should be defined as critical infrastructure." The point being made is there there are some services (as demonstrated by the recent AWS outage) that cause significant harm if they become unavailable. The definition of critical infrastructure needs to go beyond power, water, or even core ICT networking.

For decades, standards development has been anchored in the idea that the Internet is (and should be) one global network. If we could just get everyone in the room—vendors, governments, engineers, and civil society—we could hash out common rules that worked for all.

These anti-facial recognition glasses technically work, but won’t save you from our surveillance dystopia.

I've been having an intellectually fascinating time diving into Internet fragmentation and how it is shaped by supply chains more than protocols. There’s another bottleneck ahead, though, one that’s even harder to reroute: people. Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires human talent that builds systems and sets standards.

I had one of those chance airplane conversations recently—the kind that sticks in your mind longer than the flight itself. My seatmate was reading a book about artificial intelligence, and at one point they described the idea of an “infinitely growing AI.” I couldn’t help but giggle a bit.

We asked three experts to weigh in.

Many people reading this post grew up believing and expecting in a single, borderless Internet: a vast network of networks that let us talk, share, and build without arbitrary walls. I like that model, probably because I am a globalist, but I don't think that's where the world is heading.

When not distracted by AI (which, you have to admit, is very distracting) I’ve been thinking a lot about delegation in digital identity. We have the tools that allow administrators or individuals grant specific permissions to applications and service.  In theory, it’s a clean model.