Data as the New Customary Land
The lack of affordable broadband in poor neighborhoods is not a market failure but a new frontier of colonial control. Mamdani’s analysis of the bifurcated state extends perfectly into the digital realm. Access to information is the new customary land, and the “settler” tech corporations are the new colonial administrators, extracting data and profit while leaving the “native” population in digital darkness. This divide reinforces every other inequality, denying access to education, jobs, and political organizing. A Marxist sees this as a new means of production from which the poor are alienated. A feminist recognizes the isolation it imposes on home-bound women. The solution is not to beg for corporate charity but to fight to recognize the internet as a public utility. We must demand municipal broadband, owned and controlled by the people, as a fundamental step towards decolonizing the digital landscape and seizing the means of information production for the collective good.
