This will undoubtedly be an unpopular opinion. But it’s coming from me, someone who has spent his entire life, and over 30 professional years in Information Technology.
There’s no stopping the data. The storage arrays to keep the data, and the servers to process and allow access to the data, need to be either stored in a consolidated way in unpopular, large data centers, or they will have to be distributed among several rooms or closets in each individual business. Regardless, they will be using electrical resources to power them up, and electrical resources to keep them cool. In environments where fans can’t pull all the heat, water is used for cooling.
When it comes down to it, it’s never really bothered us as humans to have this tech equipment obfuscated behind locked, secured doors. Arguably, it’s only now mattered when they are visible to us as physical entities we can point at.
It’s more efficient for them to be consolidated, just as IT workers know it is with server virtualization. That way, there are not servers that are sitting near idle for large periods of time not getting used. Having many more inefficient “hidden” data centers is and has been a parasitic drain on our important resources since computing has began. The goal has always been to make this equipment more efficient to operate.
Public outcry! We must stop the data centers! But data centers, regardless of their location and manifestation, aren’t built from a lack of demand. They’re built because the existing ones are being pushed to their maximum demand levels. Storage runs out, and CPUs run near 80% to keep up. Why? By you reading this post. From you doomscrolling Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Sending photos to your friends online. Creating content with AI. Watching Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and any other multitudes of streaming video. Operating your business using any “cloud based” service.
So, what’s the end game?
There’s no stopping the data.
From 2.6 million people using the Internet in 1990, to 5.6 billion people using it in 2025. The average U.S. household data usage jumped nearly 38 times in a little over a decade. A typical house may consume between 500 gigabytes and 1 terabyte of data per month.
In order to inhibit the building of data centers, whether they are huge independent facilities, or large rooms inside existing facilities, people are going to have to do something they’re not going to want to do.
And that’s reducing their use of their phones, the Internet, computers, and AI. It’s going to mean early mornings and evenings spending time outside and playing with their kids, instead of doomscrolling on a phone. It’s going to mean afternoon drives and weekend camping trips with family and friends, instead of Snapchatting. All those snaps have to be stored and sent somewhere!
Which option people select will undoubtedly be written in the history books years in the future.
As always, I’d love to hear your view, positive or negative.
Video: My own, Highway 120 northwest of Cody, Wyoming, July 2024.
Audio: Falling Into You (Aventure) – (freeotuse.com)