Is the World Tipping Towards a Digital Medieval Age?Five tech billionaires command the most power, influence & wealth in the world, which raises the question: are we seeing a renaissance of medieval feudalism in today's age?
 Technology has always pushed the world forward & driven progress. With advancements in technology every decade, the world continues to progress and get more complex, more sophisticated, and more tech-reliant as we move into the future. With the progression of computing power and the coming of the internet, the world has been changed permanently. However, technology is a double-edged sword. While technology does usher in progress, it’s also a tool for propaganda & subjugation. The myth we were sold, which suggested that technology would democratise opportunity, in that the internet would flatten hierarchies, decentralise power, and give every individual across the globe access to a better, more equal and enriched life, is slowly falling apart. We now sit here in 2025, with a strange burgeoning pattern emerging, something that looks far less like a digital utopia and uncomfortably closer to a renaissance of medieval times. I’m not talking about aesthetics or art or architecture or your atypical Renaissance fields of progress & study, but what I’m exploring is the very structure of how modern society has evolved, one with concentrated power, private fiefdoms, and a handful of unelected rulers shaping the world more than most governments can. Today, five tech billionaires hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, infrastructure, and influence globally, namely, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. Despite market conditions and swings, they, however, consistently oscillate within the top ranks of the global wealth index, collectively commanding well over $1.2 trillion USD, which is greater than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of most individual developing nations. However, the money is just the base. Yes, their wealth brings them power, but their real power doesn’t come from their net worth & financial clout alone; it comes from infrastructure control. These men have built companies that own the digital highways, communication pipelines, cloud servers, satellite networks, and AI models that the modern world runs & depends on. And when you control the roads, you control the kingdom. The Rise of Corporate SovereigntyWhat we’re seeing today is the emergence of what political economists call Corporate Sovereignty. It is the idea that corporations now hold powers traditionally reserved for nation-states. This goes beyond market dominance. Whether it’s Meta’s ability to influence elections, Amazon’s role in national logistics, Alphabet’s dominance in information flow, or SpaceX and Starlink literally providing internet infrastructure to entire countries. We’ve crossed a dangerous line & border where companies no longer just operate within nations, they operate alongside & independent of them. A paper I was shared on LinkedIn by a writer called Korova Mode explored Corporate Sovereignty at length, delving into the nuances of how it works. But coming back, we’re seeing capitalism in the classical sense morph into something more medieval. These companies function like digital kingdoms with borders (servers), armies (engineers), citizens (users), and laws (terms of service). Unlike governments, they don’t depend on democratic legitimacy. Their decisions are internal, opaque and full of grey areas and more alarmingly, global. In my earlier article on “Techno-Feudalism”, drawing on economist Yanis Varoufakis’ book, I wrote about how the digital economy no longer resembles open markets but rather feudal estates. (You can read it linked below)
Varoufakis argues that we, the users, do not own anything online; instead, we rent access. Creators do not operate freely as well, they work under platform lords who extract value through algorithmic taxation. It’s almost an elaborate magic trick. We think we’re using these platforms for free & have freedom, but we really don’t. We’re simply “renting” that digital space, as the “rent” flows into the pockets of the aforementioned billionaires. Are We Being Charged to Use the World Itself?
Think about it: we pay for cloud storage, for better visibility, for faster delivery, for algorithmic reach, for basic digital identity verification. We even pay to remove ads from the very platforms built on harvesting our attention. Technology is now rapidly shaping up to become a toll booth economy. And as these signs elucidate, the medieval analogy becomes harder to dismiss. Back in medieval times, just as peasants paid rent to use farmland they didn’t own(owned by feudal lords), modern users pay fees to access digital spaces controlled by platforms (the modern feudal lords). Furthermore, as AI systems mature and centralise, this dependence deepens. The infrastructure is too large, too complex, and too expensive for any individual or small organisation to challenge, and that’s even the case for governments. Every decade, the barriers to entry increase and so do the rents we pay. How Much Power Do These Tech Billionaires Really Command?The answer to this question is that silently, these tech billionaires wield more power than most heads of state of countries worldwide in several domains, apart from arguably the biggest global powers. Elon Musk controls global communication infrastructure through Starlink, transportation innovation through Tesla, and (for better or worse) a massive chunk of digital discourse & the way news is now being consumed through X(Twitter). Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, controls the backbone of the internet via AWS, the largest online marketplace, and a growing media empire through the Washington Post. Mark Zuckerberg oversees the platforms through which billions communicate, socialise, and shape personal & political opinions & identity. Larry Page and Sergey Brin influence the flow of global knowledge via Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, and Android (the predominant OS of most smartphones on Earth). Individually, they each command technological realms larger than many countries. Collectively, meanwhile, they form an unelected oligarchy that’s almost a technological aristocracy. The key being they’re “unelected” and yet have enormous monopolised amounts of power that shapes the world today as we know it. Do Tech Billionaires Dictate Global Policy?And here comes the biggest grey area: these tech billionaires don’t officially shape global policy, but in practice, they increasingly do. Governments rely on their infrastructure. Defence departments rely on their cloud systems. Nations experiencing conflict rely on their satellite networks. Policymakers consult them on AI & technological regulation, cybersecurity, disinformation, climate innovation, and space exploration. Some governments fear them, some court them, and some depend on them entirely. When a tech CEO can unilaterally decide whether a country has access to satellite internet during wartime or during any crisis, it’s no longer accurate to think of governments as the sole governing entities. The power balance has shifted, and with just the sheer vast amounts of wealth and power these tech billionaires possess, it doesn’t look like it’ll change in the near future. States hold sovereignty on paper, but tech billionaires exercise sovereignty in practice. A New-Age Digital Renaissance of Kings & Feudal Lords?The medieval world was defined by decentralised monarchies (kings & feudal lords) with concentrated power, extractive systems, and dependent populations, and today, we are living through a modern renaissance of that structure, except that it’s digital. Today’s medieval lords rule data & digital infrastructure instead of land. They don’t command armies, but they do command algorithms. And their empires are not physical with borders & boundaries, they are digital, cognitive, behavioural, and infrastructural. But it must be said that, unlike medieval times, we cannot simply opt out. Land was optional, but the internet is not. Every modern citizen, whether they’re rich or poor or middle class, depends on digital infrastructure to participate in society. This is why the medieval analogy is not simply an overstatement. It is, in essence, wholly structural. We now stand at a fork in the road of the future. The underlying question remains: will this new age produce innovation, flourishing art, and intellectual & technological progress, or will it deepen inequality, dependency, and control? The signs that this inequality, dependency and control are deepening are already there. But is there a way out? A renaissance can be beautiful in more ways than one. However, feudalism wasn’t a very pretty sight in its time. Our challenge now is to ensure we’re heading toward the former, and not repeating the latter. If you liked this article, you can buy my book Make Your Own Waves, which comprises 45 thought-provoking perspectives on life, which you can buy at the link: https://amzn.eu/d/dZaX8Dr If you’re in India, you can buy it here: https://amzn.in/d/fA4iDgb
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Wednesday, 3 December 2025
Is the World Tipping Towards a Digital Medieval Age?
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