The Age of Illumination: Imposed Freedom

When software moved to subscription, everything became easier to access, faster to deploy, and simpler to scale. In the grand scheme of things, the world had already become reliant on connection and the internet. It felt like an age of illumination, constant access, everything available when you needed it, and we moved with it, almost without noticing the shift.

But it does make you pause for a second. What happens when the light goes out? Where would you be without your online storage, the photos you saved over the years, the things you no longer keep anywhere else?
We are watching a version of that play out right now. There are places where access has simply gone dark. No internet, no connection to the outside, no easy way to reach information or even each other. What felt constant is suddenly not there.

It puts things in perspective, not just how quickly access can disappear, but how much of our lives now depend on it.
At some point, access quietly replaced ownership, and we adjusted without really thinking about it.

In the world of AI, that shift is happening again. You can build quickly, test ideas, and create workflows in a fraction of the time it used to take, and that ease is what draws you in. Over time, you start to notice where it all sits. What you build runs on systems you do not operate, supported by infrastructure you do not manage, and shaped by choices that are not yours to make. That foundation now sits in fewer hands, and more of what we rely on runs through it.

AI adoption and transition feel a lot like when calculators changed how we approached math, the habit replaced the skill without us really noticing.

The pattern seems to repeat itself with AI. That reliance has built up, and it is becoming part of how work gets done, how problems are solved, how ideas are developed. Over time, it shapes not just what we can do, but who we depend on to do it. The distance between us and the systems enabling that work continues to grow, and that’s how technology evolves.

If this continues in its current direction, it might become one of the largest shifts toward reliance we have seen in a long time, wrapped in something that still feels like “imposed freedom”.