From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 46

pattern was followed in other nations, but some of these also turned to
public ownership to guarantee widespread, if not universal, access to an
essential service. So it is not very surprising that along with the term utility ,
the concept of regulation has entered public debate in today's computer
and social-media world (Marshall 2013). The demise of speciic cloud
services, such as Google Reader, because companies cannot recover ixed
costs from their provision, has led some economists to wonder whether
government ownership or regulation through public utility status is
inevitable for essential but unproitable services like search (Kaminska
2013). Even as businesses in the less developed world begin to embrace
the cloud, they fear that it might do more harm than good without the
stability provided by government regulation (Hanna 2013).
One of the key reasons why expert attention is returning to the concept
of the utility in cloud computing is that the industry is rapidly becoming
dominated by a handful of companies. The power of Amazon, Apple,
Google, Facebook, and Microsoft is troubling enough to lead some to
doubt that the “invisible hand” will prove adequate to restrain their
ability to dominate cloud markets (McKendrick 2013b). Consequently,
they maintain, we should begin to think about broader national or even
international oversight by elected representatives. As one concerned analyst
put it, “The Internet has taken the place of the telephone as the world's
basic, general-purpose, two-way communication medium. All Americans
need high-speed access, just as they need clean water, clean air, and elec-
tricity. But they have allowed a naive belief in the power and beneicence
of the free market to cloud their vision. As things stand, the U.S. has
the worst of both worlds: no competition and no regulation” (Crawford
2012). According to Crawford, when it comes to the Internet, the United
States should follow the historical example of other utilities. When, for
example, electricity came under the control of a handful of irms that
provided service only to those who paid top dollar, public pressure led
to the creation of regulated utilities and public corporations. Opponents
of this view argue that the Internet and the cloud are fundamentally dif-
ferent from roads, water, and electricity and that government regulation
would stile the incentive to risk-taking innovation. In 2013, the divide
between cloud computing and electrical utilities blurred when research
found that a growing number of cloud companies were making signii-
cant proits by reselling electricity to customers in addition to providing