The centralized cloud: A barrier for startups in the developing world | Opinion

The promise of cloud computing was to expand access to the digital world across the globe, but for startups in developing countries, this promise remains largely unfulfilled. Centralized cloud services, dominated and gatekept by tech giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, often create as many obstacles as opportunities that inhibit innovation in emerging economies.

While these services initially accelerated the development of digital connectivity in developed nations, their centralized model has grown to pose significant challenges for sustainable growth and innovation. From technological dependency and prohibitive costs to physical infrastructure limitations, the current cloud computing paradigm is inadvertently widening the digital divide as progress accelerates, leaving many promising young minds and startups in developing countries struggling to compete on the global stage.

Technological dependency and operational risks 

Technological dependency and operational risks are two of the most critical issues users face in developing nations. In the Asia-Pacific region, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud dominate with a combined 66% market share. This concentration leaves developing economies reliant on foreign-owned digital infrastructure, limiting local innovation and exposing businesses to service disruptions ranging from latency issues to full-on outages. 

Recent high-profile outages have tested cloud infrastructure resilience. In December 2021, AWS experienced a significant disruption affecting critical services like EC2, S3, RDS, and Lambda for several hours. The impact was far-reaching, causing issues for major platforms such as Netflix, Disney Plus, and Ticketmaster, as well as Amazon’s services, including Prime Music, Ring doorbells, and parts of Amazon.com. For small businesses and startups, particularly in developing countries, such outages can pose serious challenges, potentially resulting in financial losses and impacting customer trust. In 2023, another notable AWS outage brought down news outlets like the Boston Globe and public services such as the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority for hours. These events underscore the ongoing importance of robust infrastructure and comprehensive contingency planning in our increasingly cloud-dependent world.

Cost barriers

Cost barriers present another significant challenge. Startups typically have a higher cloud-to-IT spend ratio than larger enterprises, making cloud costs disproportionately burdensome. This limits their ability to scale, develop products, and innovate solutions. A revealing cost comparison for real-time communication (RTC) services shows that for a scenario with 10 participants transferring 31.5 GB per hour, AWS would cost about $30,458 annually. In contrast, decentralized solutions could reduce this to just $590 per year—a potential 97% saving. Such stark cost differences can be game-changing for resource-constrained startups in emerging economies.

Perhaps the most fundamental issue is that centralized cloud services present significant operational challenges for startups in developing countries. High latency due to geographically distant data centers can severely impact application performance, particularly for real-time services like video streaming or financial transactions. This performance gap puts local startups at a competitive disadvantage compared to businesses in regions with closer proximity to major cloud infrastructure. 

The developing world

We must rethink our approach to cloud computing in the developing world to address these challenges. Decentralized solutions using peer-to-peer networks offer promising alternatives. These technologies distribute data and processing across many nodes, reducing reliance on any single provider or country’s infrastructure. 

By breaking down the siloed architecture of existing servers and increasing the number of geographically distributed data centers, particularly in underrepresented regions, these solutions can optimize communication costs, enhance overall user experience, and improve data security.

While centralized cloud services have their place, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution, particularly for developing countries. Decentralized technologies promise to break down the barriers that currently limit the potential of startups in the developing world. With potential cost savings of up to 90%, these solutions could democratize access to high-quality communication infrastructure. While reliability, scalability, and regulatory compliance challenges must be addressed, the decentralized future of cloud computing in developing economies promises a more equitable and innovative digital ecosystem.