The coming age of data monarchs

By | May 22, 2017

Jeff DeGraff, a clinical professor of business administration at the Ross School of Business, doesn’t believe that the web is truly as accessible and democratic as many would have us believe. According to DeGraff, the web is no longer the free and open space it was a decade ago. “It’s now a feudal system run by a handful of ultra-large and ultra-sophisticated monarchs,” he says in an essay broadcast by Michigan Radio. “The rest of us are just serfs handing over a percentage of our crop to the lords and ladies who have the power to grant us access to the digital world of meaningful commerce. Our chances of actually becoming web royalty are about the same as retiring from that scratch-off lottery ticket.”