Debating Digital Dominance: Decentralized Technology Governance For Strategic Autonomy

Abstract

The rise of Big Tech has created unprecedented concentrations of power. The scaling potential of the modern IT industry is leading to widespread monopolies. For technologies that serve society, a monopoly brings structural dependence, and gives their owners an almost unchallengeable power. To counteract this societal dependence, academia, industry, and society at large proposed various countermeasures to limit the power of technology providers. In this thesis, Paul van Vulpen compares these approaches. The goal is to maintain the benefits of technology while reducing societal dependence on a few powerful actors. This book investigates three approaches. First, software ecosystems outline the collaboration between various interrelated software actors. Second, blockchain and decentralized autonomous organizations offer radical approaches to rethink and decentralize IT governance structures. Finally, digital platform regulations address urgent societal issues that arise from concentrated platform power. The final section concludes that a delicate and organic approach is needed to IT governance. Excessive centralization creates structural risks, but full decentralization is neither practical nor beneficial. The thesis proposes a middle road: Federated Technology Governance (FTG). In FTG, central authority defines architecture, interoperability standards, and maintains the long-term vision. A wide variety of actors handle user interaction, implementation, and collaboration. This framework helps technology providers to create software ecosystems and safeguard the provision of societal benefit for public digital infrastructure. FTG supports the creation of sovereign cloud services, secure operating systems, and public large language models. Could it also be a road to enable technology to serve society and the common good?