Link to the source article from the BBC “Data is not the new oil” (2017)
How do you know when a pithy phrase or seductive idea has become fashionable in policy circles? When The Economist devotes a briefing to it.
In a briefing and accompanying editorial earlier this summer, that distinguished newspaper argued that data is today what oil was a century ago.
“A new commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting anti-trust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow.” (Economist, 2017)
Just as a century ago those who got to the oil in the ground were able to amass vast wealth, establish near monopolies, and build the future economy on their own precious resource, so data companies like Facebook and Google are able to do similar now. With oil in the 20th century, a consensus eventually grew that it would be up to regulators to intervene and break up the oligopolies – or oiliogopolies – that threatened an excessive concentration of power.