A Sourced Investigation · by Michael Polzin
Big Tech
Accountability
Cloud economics, the SaaS lock-in machine, and the people and places that pay for it — told entirely from the public record. Every claim links to its source. Opinions are labeled. Nothing here alleges a crime.
In what world would it be true?
You already hold a model of how this economy works. Before the evidence, guess. The distance between your guess and the record is the surprise — and surprise is exactly what updates a map. Drag each slider to your honest estimate, then reveal.
What this evidence is made of
Every claim in the 12-part series cleared a legal/ethics gate; the newer human-cost, planetary-cost and systemic sections hold to the same standard and are under review (see Method). Here is the exact mix — and how much is anchored to primary documents you can open yourself.
Three ways to read the evidence
Where the value goes
The cloud is the most profitable machine in the history of business. Here is how big the numbers are, how one assumption moved billions, and who ends up holding the gains.
The numbers at stake
The largest dollar figures pulled directly from primary-sourced facts in this investigation, drawn to scale. Each links to the claim it comes from.
One assumption. Billions in profit.
In 2023 Alphabet changed a single accounting estimate — how long a server is assumed to last — from four years to six. Drag the slider to see how that one number moves reported profit, using Alphabet's own disclosed 2023 figures.
server life
Illustration. Holds Alphabet's depreciable asset base constant and scales from the company's disclosed figures: the 4→6 year change cut FY2023 depreciation by $3.9B and raised net income by $3.0B ($0.24/share). Source: Alphabet Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1 (SEC, 2024-01-30).
The cloud runs on people you never see
Behind every "AI safety" filter and every clean SaaS dashboard is a workforce — often offshore, often contracted, often paid a fraction of a living wage to absorb work no one else will. The figures below are documented. The conclusion is labeled as opinion. You decide.
Opinion · Michael Polzin "The system was built to make the cost of this labor invisible — and to keep its value flowing to the people furthest from the harm. No bad people. A bad system, working exactly as designed."
A data-center economy has a physical bill
Compute is not weightless. It is electricity, water, and land — drawn from real grids and real communities, increasingly to train and run AI. Here is what the meters say.
The system is editing your map of the world
An attention economy is engineered to maximize engagement, not your understanding — and what we attend to becomes who we are. This is the most contested terrain in the investigation, so the science is labeled carefully: established findings as fact, the disputed causal claims as exactly that.
Opinion · Michael Polzin "We carry our ancestors as priors — the model the world built in us over generations. A feed tuned to the next swipe overwrites that model with noise. Rebuilding an accurate map of the world is how a mind, and a people, finds its way home."
You are not the first to say this
Scholars, regulators, engineers and whistleblowers have documented this machine for years — on the record, under their own names. And the record also shows what it has cost some of them to speak.
Every claim, every source
The full verified dataset behind the series — 12 parts, each claim labeled fact, allegation, or opinion, each fact linked to a primary or reputable source. Search it, filter it, check it.
How this was sourced
This investigation runs on one rule: if a sentence of consequence can't be tied to a source you can open, it gets cut — not softened.
Traces to a primary source — a regulatory filing, court docket, company disclosure, or peer-reviewed study — or to at least two independent reputable outlets.
Attributed to whoever made it, on the record, with the filing or statement cited. We never restate it in our own voice as settled fact.
Clearly labeled as Michael's interpretation, containing no embedded false fact. You can filter it out entirely in the Receipts.
We do not assert that any identifiable person or company committed a crime. The human-cost and planetary-cost sections apply the same standard: documented wages, settlements, court rulings, filings and peer-reviewed measurements as fact; harsher characterizations carried only as labeled opinion or quotes attributed to named sources. Where companies dispute or contextualize a point, we link their own public statements. Found an error or something unfair? Reach Michael Polzin, or call 262.914.2929 — corrections are made promptly and noted here.
Where this investigation is least certain
An honest map shows its own fog. These are the claims we hold with the lowest confidence, or that are labeled allegation or opinion rather than fact — surfaced on purpose, drawn from both datasets. Strong claims don't fear a list like this.
Transparency & limits
Two datasets, two stages of review
The 12-part series (The Receipts) has cleared a documented legal/ethics gate. The human-cost, planetary-cost and systemic sections are newer — rigorously sourced and labeled by the same taxonomy, but still awaiting that formal gate review. We tell you that rather than hide it.
What is contested is labeled contested
Whether trauma is inherited across generations through the germline, and whether social media caused the teen mental-health decline, are genuine open scientific debates — we cite the skeptics. Characterizations of the AI build-out as a "bubble" are the attributed opinions of named analysts, not our verdict.
Sources, dated and preferred primary
We prefer primary documents — filings, dockets, disclosures, peer-reviewed studies. Where a publisher blocked automated access, we cite a faithful republication and say so. Every figure carries a date and may drift as the world moves.
Confidence is our own estimate
The percentage beside each claim is the author's calibrated estimate, not a measurement of truth. The calibration ledger above foregrounds the lowest-confidence and contested claims on purpose — an honest map shows its own fog.
Projections and assembled figures
Some numbers are forecasts (IEA 2030 power, 2027 water, e-waste) or sums the author assembled from underlying sources (the 658,617 layoff total; the top-10% stock share computed from two Fed series). These are labeled in context, not presented as single official statistics.
What we never do
We do not assert that any identifiable person or company committed a crime — not as fact, not as "opinion." Settlements resolve claims without an admission of guilt; we never present one as a verdict. Where a company answered on the record, we link its words. Found an error? Reach Michael — corrections are logged.
This is a hypothesis.
Falsify it.
Everything here is offered as a calibrated signal, not a final verdict. That is the scientific posture, and it is the honest one: a theory earns its standing only by surviving every serious attempt to break it.
So break it. If you can show a figure is wrong, a quote misattributed, a claim stronger than its source — bring the better-sourced signal and the record is corrected. That correction is not a defeat; it is the entire point. It is how a shared map of the world gets more accurate, and how the people living inside it stop paying for a distorted one.
Where the evidence is uncertain, we have said so. Where it is opinion, we have labeled it. Nothing here accuses a person of a crime. Until a claim is falsified, the documented record stands — and setting the record straight is where the healing starts.
Speak in calibrated signals. Falsify what you can. Bring it to Michael →