Is Amazon the Dutch East India Company of Our Time?
Ted Gioia’s piece, “Google Is Now the East India Company of the Internet”, sketches out a sharp, necessary parallel between the tech behemoth and the infamous colonial trading power. It’s the kind of analogy that makes too much sense once you see it — an empire built on controlling trade routes, exerting soft and hard power alike, accumulating vast wealth while cloaking itself in the language of growth and progress. Yet perhaps an even more striking comparison exists: Amazon perfectly mirrors the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the original corporate empire that reshaped global commerce.
Living in Southeast Asia, among the architectural and social remnants of the VOC, I witness daily how colonial trading powers shaped our modern world. In Jakarta’s gridlocked streets, where centuries-old Dutch canal houses stand alongside gleaming skyscrapers, the legacy of systematic exploitation remains visible in everything from land ownership patterns to social hierarchies. The Dutch didn’t just leave behind buildings – they established a system where resources and power remained concentrated in the hands of a few, creating an oligarchic structure that prevails in modern Indonesia.
Like its historical predecessor, Amazon doesn’t merely participate in commerce – it fundamentally controls the infrastructure of trade. Just as the VOC established physical control through strategic fortifications across Asia, Amazon exerts digital dominance through its vast network of data centers, distribution hubs, and cloud services. AWS servers host everything from billion-dollar startups to major publications, while Kindle Direct Publishing determines whether your writing has a place in the digital literary market. This infrastructure creates a system of dependencies more sophisticated but no less binding than the VOC’s trade routes.
The mechanics of control have evolved, but the underlying logic remains unchanged. In Amazon’s warehouses, workers face constant surveillance, their movements tracked and optimised by algorithms. Delivery drivers operate under relentless quotas, their every turn monitored by GPS. The human cost is particularly evident in the warehouse floors, where workers’ bathroom breaks are timed and their productivity measured down to the second. The system reduces human lives to units of productivity, echoing the VOC’s labor management.
The relationship between corporate and state power demonstrates another persistent parallel. The Dutch Republic granted the VOC unprecedented autonomy, allowing it to function as a quasi-state with its own currency and military. Today, Amazon’s influence shapes regulatory landscapes and public policy through sophisticated lobbying and strategic partnerships. Its vast infrastructure has made it indispensable to modern commerce, creating a dependency that transcends traditional business relationships. The integration of Amazon’s services into daily life creates a form of structural power that resists conventional regulation. For aspiring authors, Kindle Direct Publishing has become virtually unavoidable – the dependence runs so deep that even resistance is folded back into the machine. Publishing an anti-corporate manifesto? The path to readers likely leads through Amazon’s digital shelves.
The convenience of next-day delivery and integrated digital services has become so fundamental to modern life that extracting oneself from Amazon’s ecosystem requires deliberate, conscious effort. Yet historical precedent suggests that no monopoly lasts forever. The VOC’s dominance ended not through sudden collapse but through the gradual accumulation of its own contradictions and excesses. The path forward isn’t about complete disengagement but about conscious choice and the cultivation of alternatives. Supporting independent infrastructure, choosing local services when possible, and maintaining awareness of our digital dependencies represent small but significant acts of resistance against the consolidation of corporate power. What principles guide your digital and consumer footprints?