Let’s call it what it is: SaaS companies like Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce have built their empires on user data. AI companies are now doing the same—vacuuming intellectual property, artistic work, and behavioral patterns without consent or compensation. Your data powers their profits. Your creative output trains their models. And in return? Nothing but the illusion of convenience. **Blockchain breaks this cycle.** Bitcoin proved you can build a decentralized, incorruptible database without any corporate owner. That same ethos is now expanding across infrastructure layers—storage, compute, identity, and soon, AI itself. Imagine an AI that isn’t owned by OpenAI, Google, or Meta—but by its users and contributors. One where: * **Creators are paid directly** every time their data trains or informs a model. * **Users pay per use**, with no middlemen skimming value. * **Storage and inference** happen across a decentralized network, not a server farm in Iowa owned by Amazon. We’re already halfway there: * Open-source AI models are exploding. * Decentralized data networks like Ocean Protocol, Arweave, and Filecoin are laying the groundwork. * On-chain micro-payments via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network or Ethereum L2s make per-use pricing and royalty flows frictionless. The only missing link? A blockchain-native public content layer—a decentralized social or media protocol where creators knowingly and transparently publish content to be used by AI models, governed by smart contracts and public consensus. Once that’s in place, **AI will no longer be a corporate engine—it will be a public utility.** Compare that to the vision offered in Tarifa: a SaaS ecosystem remade by AI, yes—but still fundamentally structured around corporate ownership, shareholder returns, and top-down control. The so-called “Whole Revenue Strategy” simply reinforces the model of centralized entities extracting value from users without redistributing it. Scaling? Sure. But for whom? In contrast, the blockchain model flips this: * SaaS becomes **Decentralized-as-a-Service**—protocols owned and governed by their users. * AI becomes **Collective Intelligence**—where every input has traceability and every contributor earns a share. * Data becomes **self-sovereign**—you own it, you license it, you profit from it. This isn’t a utopia. It’s already happening. Blockchain will eat SaaS and AI for the same reason Bitcoin continues to grow: **it offers a fundamentally better deal**—one based on transparency, participation, and equity. As the infrastructure matures, the current AI-SaaS stack will look bloated, extractive, and outdated. Just like legacy banking in a world with Bitcoin.

We were told the internet would set us free and connect us. Instead, it built the most efficient isolating cages in human history. Our digital lives—our content, our attention, our friendships, our comments, our likes—have all been prostituted. We are not the users of Facebook or Google; we are the product, and our data is the commodity sold to the highest bidder. But years ago, a crack appeared in their monopoly. It was a data protocol called Bitcoin. Bitcoin proved something revolutionary: that we could build a global, trusted system without a central kingpin. No CEO, no board of directors. Just code, consensus, and an incorruptible ledger that belongs to the network itself. It showed us that vital utilities—like money—could be owned by everyone and no one. This same blueprint, is now our escape route from digital data brothels. Imagine a world where you own your digital self. Your social profile, your creative work, your search history—it’s not stored on an Amazon server farm, but on a decentralized network. You hold the keys. And when a company, or an AI, needs your data to learn, it doesn’t just steal it. It pays you. Directly. Instantly. This is the promise of a data-layer built on blockchain: turning tech giants from feudal lords and data pimps, into mere service providers on a utility network we all control. This isn't a distant dream. The tools are being built now. Platforms like Keet and Nostr are proving we can have open source social media. Open-source AI and decentralized storage solutions are also laying the groundwork. But the power of this model doesn't stop with our data. The same principle of transparent, verifiable trust can save us from corruption of our physical devices. We've just seen how vulnerable we are. From Intel's Management Engine, to Pegasus and now, exploding pagers, all show us that now our hardware can be lethally weaponized. Fortunately, RISK-V and Linux are being built as escape hatches on the hardware and software front. But imagine a supply chain where every step in the manufacture and distribution is immutably logged. Any tampering or unauthorized injection, would be instantly viewable globally as a red flag. This is already being pioneered for everything from food safety to cross-border trade. It’s the same cure for two different diseases: the prostitution of our data and the sabotage of our hardware. The battle for our future is between two models. One is the old, opaque kingdom, where lords like Ellison, Altman, Bezos and Zuckerberg control the algorithms and the backdoors. The other is a new republic, built on a foundation of open code and verifiable truth. Bitcoin gave us back our money. Now, its underlying technology gives us a path to take back our data, our privacy, and ultimately, our trust in the world around us. The choice is finally ours.

What is the Petrodollar?

We were told the internet would set us free. Instead, it built the most efficient cages in human history. And we’re only now discovering that the locks on these cages aren’t just in the software—they’re baked into the very hardware we use. Our digital identities—our likes, our fears, our relationships—have been prostituted by tech companies. They monetize our attention, package our personalities, and sell the shadows we cast back to us as targeted ads. We are not the users; we are the product. And the shareholders of Meta, of Google, are the pimps. But a crack in their monopoly has been opening for years. It started not with a company, but with a concept: Bitcoin. Bitcoin proved something revolutionary. It proved you could build a global, incorruptible, financial network without a central owner. No CEO, no board of directors, no government pulling the strings. Just code, consensus, and a ledger that belongs to everyone and no one. It laid the groundwork. It showed us that the most vital services—like money—could be public utilities, owned by the network itself. And now, that same blueprint is being applied to our data. But first, we had to discover the prison walls. For years, we worried about software viruses. We never imagined the virus was in the chipset. Intel’s Management Engine, a secretive mini-computer inside your CPU with ring -1 access to everything you do. Pegasus spyware, a ghost in the machine, turning your phone into a silent microphone in your pocket. These aren’t bugs; they are meticulously designed backdoors, zero-day exploits that are features for someone else. They are the ultimate expression of control—ownership of the device you thought you owned. But the same open-source ethos that powers Bitcoin is fighting back on the hardware front. Linux developers, the unsung heroes of digital freedom, are now the ones discovering these backdoors, documenting them, and building ways to neutralize them. They are painstakingly creating firmware that strips out the bloat and the surveillance, giving us back control of our machines. And people are voting with their feet. When Microsoft began its aggressive, coercive push to Windows 11, it wasn't just an annoyance; it was a revelation. It showed millions that they were tenants in an operating system they didn't control, forced to accept terms dictated by a landlord. And so, they’re leaving. The number of Linux users is skyrocketing because it represents choice, transparency, and ownership. It’s the people taking back the keys to their own hardware. This is the full picture. The battle is on every level. The forced sale of TikTok—Larry Ellison, a man who built his fortune on a CIA database, now taking control of the algorithm to "retrain" it—that’s the software layer. The ownership of the narrative. But the Intel ME, the Pegasus exploits, that’s the hardware layer. The ownership of the device itself. This is why Bitcoin’s groundwork is so vital. It points to the alternative for the entire stack. Just as open-source software like Linux and open hardware like RISC-V are breaking the monopoly on physical tech, decentralized protocols are building the escape hatch for our data. Imagine a world where your social profile, your creative work, your entire digital self isn't stored on a server farm in Iowa owned by Amazon, but on a decentralized network. You own it. You control the keys. And when an AI model needs your data to learn, it doesn’t just vacuum it up. It pays you. Directly. Instantly. Through the same kind of micro-payments Bitcoin’s Lightning Network makes possible. This isn’t a fantasy. It’s already beginning. Platforms like Keet and Nostr are showing us what censorship-resistant communication looks like. They are the early, scrappy proof that we don’t need corporate overlords to connect. The current system is a feudal kingdom, from the silicon up to the cloud. We are serfs, using devices with secret backdoors, toiling on digital land owned by lords who trade our harvested attention for power. But the foundation for a new republic is being laid. A republic where data services—storage, social media, even AI—are true public utilities. Not government-run, but network-owned. Governed by transparent code, not by secret algorithms retrained in boardrooms, or hidden inside a chip. The battle for TikTok and the discovery of hardware backdoors are the last, desperate gasps of the old model. They’re so blatant, so grotesque, that they might just be the thing that wakes everyone up. They’re showing us the monster, hoping we’ll be too terrified to imagine an alternative. But the alternative is already here. It’s in the code. It’s in the kernel. It’s in the protocol. Bitcoin gave us the model for taking back our money. Linux is giving us back our machines. Now, together, we will use that model to take back our minds. The choice is no longer between tech giants. The choice is between being a serf in their digital kingdom, or a citizen in our own network.