Be all that as it may, I absolutely make heavy use of web-based services myself. For example, I'm writing this blog entry using Google Docs - a web-based service that lets users create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations online for free. It doesn't matter what device I work on - be it an iPhone or a netbook or a desktop computer. Without loading any software onto my personal computing devices, and using any web browser on any platform, I can make use of the Google Docs service for just the cost of my connection to the internet.
This makes Google Docs, and the thousands of other online services that have sprung up since the dawn of the web over 15 years, services that are brought to people everywhere thanks to cloud computing.
According to Wikipedia
"Cloud computing is a paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the 'cloud' that supports them.
"The concept generally incorporates combinations of the following:
- Infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
- Platform as a service (PaaS).
- Software as a service (SaaS).
- Other recent (ca. 2007–09) technologies that rely on the Internet to satisfy the computing needs of users. Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.
"The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals."
In some ways this kind of online service delivery represents a huge advancement for users around the world - who no longer have to make substantial investments in personal computer equipment and software simply to be able to create documents, communicate with other people, and make of a myriad of more specialized applications. In other ways, some critics say, cloud computing is a step backwards to the early 1970s when most computer users were forced to sit at terminals connected to a large mainframe computer. Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman takes the criticism a step further and cautions that millions of people using cloud computing services are putting their valuable data into the control of large entities like corporations and governments - giving up their control over their own data in the process.
Perhaps the most damning criticism of cloud computing comes courtesy of the recent wave of Google outages - the most recent a couple of days ago - which has shaken public faith in the stability of the distant systems behind many of our favorite services.
And it's true, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and many other services are all based on thousands of server computers at data centers all over the world. Any problem at those data centers - be they internal through software or hardware bugs, or external in the form of hacker attacks (or hostile governments in the case of Iran during the recent uprising) - can cause serious service slowdowns or shutdowns.
This alone should give labor technologists and leadership pause. But there are some deeper issues around cloud computing that make it worth a longer look by the labor movement. Because since computers have become cheaper and widely available, labor has grappled with how best to make use of the new technologies coming at us at an ever-accelerating rate. What tech is useful to us, and what isn't? Is the new tech beneficial to working people on the balance or not? And most important of all, who makes the new tech? What are the labor conditions of workers in the new computer and internet industries Are they unionized? (Hell no.) Is low wage labor involved? (Hell yes.) Is all this stuff just snake oil? (No, not all of it.)
In the case of cloud computing, it's clearly here to stay. But should labor unions make heavy use of it in the same way many companies are to provide their staff more technology for less money - increasing productivity and relevance in the bargain? Should we encourage people to use largely corporate-run cloud computing services that are provided by workers that are UN-unionized wall-to-wall?
And most critically, if even cloud computing proponents indicate that these new cloud computing services resemble nothing so much as public utilities - in the sense that people basically get access to them for the cost of their monthly DSL or broadband bill, plus maybe some small monthly fees for individual premium services like Skype Out (which lets Skype users call landlines for a flat fee) - then why aren't these services regulated like public utilities?
And why aren't these services' workers unionized like public utility workers?
Tough questions. Interestingly, many corporate providers of cloud computing services are busily trying to regulate themselves via a working document called the Open Cloud Manifesto. But the manifesto is primarily concerned with interoperability between all the various online services and not at all concerned with the labor conditions of its workforce. Also, manifesti like the Open Cloud document are voluntary and signed by corporate chieftains - not mandatory like public regulation. They don't guarantee the general public - or workers in what could be called the cloud computing industry - anything at all.
Aside from these key issues, there remains the unresolved issue of whether the labor movement should use this developing corporate-run cloud computing service infrastructure or develop our own. I'm not sure about that. Somethings I see labor doing along these lines - like the AFL-CIO's LaborWeb that gives member locals access to simple websites built as part of a centralized hierarchical information infrastructure - are not likely to work. Others - like LabourStart building an union-run social network using the open source Elgg architecture - might work very well indeed.
Still, it's a tall order for labor to go to the wall for working families 24-7 and simultaneously create its own cloud computing infrastructure that could serve as a pro-worker model for the kind of technology we'd like to see win the day worldwide. It's also highly questionable whether union members and their families would really make use of such systems when virtually everyone around them is using the big corporate-run systems.
Nor would union-run cloud computing services answer the public utility or data privacy critiques mentioned above. Or solve the problems of encouraging union members to use systems which will still have a centralized infrastructure vulnerable to internal and external bugs.
I've got no ready answers on these subjects, but sometimes the first step towards understanding a set of problems is to raise some questions about them. And that's what I've done here with the various dimensions of cloud computing.
There are a lot of good reasons for the labor movement to make use of cloud computing services from day-to-day no matter who runs them. But as good unionists do with economic and political questions, it makes sense to look deeply into the technological questions underlying cloud computing and decide whether it ultimately makes sense for us to push such technologies or search for better alternatives.
