Business Quote by Scientific American
““We would not accept a situation in which every home and business had to operate its own power plant, library, printing press and water reservoir. Why should we do so for computers?””
About This Quote
Source Scientific American: Article “The Future of Decentralized Computing”, 2018
Advocates against each entity needing its own full infrastructure, arguing for shared, efficient resources.
In simple terms: We should avoid each building separate power and water systems for computers.
Promote shared, centralized infrastructure for efficiency.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- Data centers
- cloud services
- municipal planning
- energy policy
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- What risks arise from over‑centralization?
- How can we balance resilience with efficiency?
Centralized systems can create single points of failure.