I'm not suggesting AI data centers aren't the focal point, but it is more a symptom than the disease. Big Tech does so much to infuriate people, and their attitude towards AI data centers is just the peak expression of it. Tech is all about:

1. Making sure they are the only industry that wins

2. Dark pattern subscriptions that are very difficult to cancel

3. Garbage customer support, even for paying customers

4. Rampant privacy violations

5. No loyalty to employees even in rich times (e.g. MSFT asking 25% of employees to leave when they are absolutely printing money)

6. Tax avoidance at all costs, so there is no economic benefit to a data center in your location.

7. A faux moral high ground that they'll abandon the second they need to ingratiate themselves to corrupt politicians or need to pollute more for AI.

8. Only shareholders matter. Forget customers, communities, or employees.

It is an unmistakable stench that teaches people that tech doesn't value them at all beyond a monthly subscription.

I've worked in tech my whole career, and our industry sucks ass. It is only getting worse too.

Meta social platforms are losing users, as reported in their own financial filings:

https://www.theverge.com/tech/921089/meta-earnings-q1-2026-u...

Q3 Amazon’s year over year net sales growth is 2%.

https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-ceo-retail-business-i...

This is a similar growth rate to Verizon.

You're demonstrating a classic engineer blind spot here: just because people are using the service doesn't mean they like you, and that they won't cheer when you're on the gallows. Indeed, feeling like you're forced to use a service because it drove all the alternatives out of business generates the most resentment of all.

Don't mistake usage numbers for public appreciation.

But that doesn't mean they like it.

Amazon may be better than getting in your car and driving downtown to visit several stores to see if they have what I want. It can still be worse than it was five years ago, though, and that difference can still grate on users, even while the users continue to use it.

Facebook may be the best way of seeing updates on what my grandchildren are up to, and it can be much more of a dark pattern, enslaving mess compared to what it was five years ago. People can still feel the difference and resent it, even while they look at their grandkids' pictures.

You are forgetting about the grifting part where they dump all of this crap on our 401ks

The homelessness problem in the bay area is mostly caused by the extremely high housing prices, which are ultimately caused by NIMBYism; and by the stupid and self-destructive empathy of the local progressive elites who think it's oppressive to use the police to force the most dysfunctional visibly homeless people living on the streets into involuntary treatment and shelter.

Neither of these phenomena are primarily the fault of the Silicon Valley tech industry; and NIMBYism in particular is largely driven by people who bought bay area houses many decades ago (my family is from the bay area, and I'm absolutely including my relatives in my parents' generation in that number - none of them work in the tech industry).

We can do that by negotiating appropriate tax agreements with local municipalities. Instead we’re getting categorical bans across the board. People have been convinced that datacenters are an unsalvegable evil. It’s a bit extreme.

Agreed! It seems to me that a model like public utilities or even NASA might be a better approach. This just doesn't seem like the sort of thing that is a good match for profit motive.

People do not hate AI. I know a lot of people, through work and social life and there isn’t a single person not hating AI but even disliking it slightly. Confusing not wanting a fucking Data Center where you live with “hating AI” is a real thing though

American anti-datacenter sentiment is not a Chinese psyop; that doesn't mean that sentiment is well-founded or a good thing for US interests.

Not only that, but this is basically the sales pitch of AI:

Voter: So, tell me about this AI stuff. You wanna build one in my backyard right?

AI CEO: That's right! It'll increase the cost of your water, electricity, and likely lower your property values due to people leaving because of the 24/7 daytime lighting and noise pollution!

Voter: Well I kinda don't like that at all!

AI CEO: Great! Because that's not all! Once we really improve on our AI, it will eat your job for now and forever! And, wait till we embody them in robots. Whoo-boy! You won't even be able to drive a truck or plumb pipes for a living! Ain't that great?

Voter: What? No! That sounds terrible!

AI CEO (thinking): Why can't I get to these schmucks?

It's the economy stupid. If you don't offer material improvement with UBI instead of selfishly flexing your utopian visions of Star Trek robes and replicators and you and only you living for a thousand years, don't be surprised if voters don't give you what you want politically.

Right - so instead of getting mad at datacenters, how about getting out of the way of building more powerplants?

Electricity is the ultimate fungible resource. You can convert electricity into food, housing, medicine, video games, football games (either sort), transportation, etc.

The more electricity we produce, the more broadly prosperous we will be.

It's not a question of needing more electricity - we don't need any electricity at all. We got by without it for 100k years until just the last few. But still, the more we have, the better all our lives will be.

It's a real problem because we were sold a post industrial dream which could only happen if the hardest computation anyone would ever have to do is sending an http packet.

Electricity is destiny, if you can't produce it you will be a puppet of those who can. See Germany.

amazing a comment like this gets downvoted, must be nice looking down from the ivory tower :)

I feel for the people and their concerns, but until about 6 months ago the average person neither knew nor cared what a datacenter was, and probably still would not, were it not for some well-edited TikToks.

People’s opinions are valid, and I wish tech CEOs were better at addressing them, but ultimately it is hysteria and it is a psyop, and the US will regret it.