Big Tech as the Medieval Church

The medieval Church wasn’t just (or primarily) a religious institution: it also provided civil infrastructure to large parts of Europe. Monasteries preserved and copied the manuscripts that contained the accumulated knowledge of the civilization. Other parts of the Church maintained the hospitals and schools, and operated the record-keeping systems that kept track of births, deaths, marriages, and property transfers—the events on which legal and economic life depended. What the Church got back (besides power) was the tithe. A tithe was not a voluntary donation made in gratitude for spiritual services. It was an obligation levied on agricultural production, enforced through ecclesiastical courts, and owed regardless of the individual’s relationship with, or opinion of, the Church. Every household paid the Church approximately one-tenth of its productive output; this was a structural feature of the economic system, not as a transaction. Today, the App Store charges a thirty percent…