How tech
lost
America.

A collision between technology companies and the public was always possible. An industry built on network effects could become extraordinarily useful and extraordinarily powerful at the same time. People could depend on its products while becoming less comfortable with the people making the decisions.

That is where we are. The relationship between business, government and the public is being renegotiated. There is no guarantee that the renegotiation ends well. But there is a difference between being caught in a system you cannot change and beginning to discover where you can change it.

Parents are changing the default

I see this in my own small town in the Hudson Valley. Among the parents I know, delaying smartphones has become a shared commitment, and many have no intention of opening the door to social media in eighth grade either. What matters is that families are deciding together rather than treating the next device as inevitable.

On smartphones and social media, parents now have years of experience that the first families handing a child an internet-connected phone did not. That does not settle every scientific argument. It does mean that families can make more deliberate choices, and make them together.

The Wait Until 8th pledge[152] is an example of that coordination. The organization says more than 155,000 parents have joined a commitment to delay a smartphone until at least the end of eighth grade. A school-grade pledge becomes active when ten families participate. That arrangement matters: one family’s limit is easier to maintain when a child’s friends are not all operating under a different rule. The sign-up count is the organization’s own, not a measurement of how consistently every family follows through.

Entrepreneurs are responding too. Tin Can[153] offers a Wi-Fi home phone that lets children talk to contacts approved by their parents, without putting apps or a social feed in their hands. Calls to other Tin Cans are included; a paid plan allows approved ordinary phone numbers too. The device is one small example of technology being redesigned around a boundary families want.

Young people are also expressing limits of their own. In Pew’s survey conducted in fall 2024[154], 45 percent of American teenagers said they spent too much time on social media, up from 27 percent in 2023. Forty-four percent said they had cut back, compared with 39 percent a year earlier. These are self-reports, and 55 percent still said they had not cut back. Even with that qualification, the picture includes young people trying to alter their relationship with the products.

There is evidence of a pullback in time spent as well, although it needs a careful date. DataReportal’s Digital 2025 analysis of GWI data[155] put daily social-media use at two hours and 21 minutes for the typical surveyed internet user globally, ten minutes below the figure reported two years before. Men and women aged 16 to 24 had each reduced their daily time by twelve minutes. This is a global survey finding, not a measurement of all Americans. And GWI subsequently changed how it measured time with media[156]. Those older and newer figures therefore do not establish a comparable, continuous decline through 2026.

The data-center bargain is changing

The data centers we began with offer another possible route back. They make the relationship tangible: a piece of land, a water supply, an electric system, a town. That gives residents and governments specific things to negotiate. Who pays for the substation? What happens if a project never opens? What information must be public? How much noise reaches a home? Can the community say no?

By October 16, 2026, some answers had moved into utility tariffs, executive orders and local ordinances. Others remained company commitments or unfinished proposals. Those categories should stay separate. A pledge establishes something to hold a company to; an enforceable contract determines what happens when it fails to deliver.

A growing set of rules, with different terms

The spread of large-load rules is measurable. In an April 20, 2026 update[183], the Smart Electric Power Alliance and NC Clean Energy Technology Center reported that their March 31 database contained 77 large-load tariffs and service rules across 36 states and 60 utilities: 51 approved and 26 proposed, still awaiting approval. By the June 30 snapshot[184], the combined count had reached 104 across 37 states. That is a measure of regulatory activity. It does not mean all those measures were in force, that each state had one uniform rule, or that every covered project had to pay the same share of grid costs. The actual protections depend on the terms, the customers covered and the date they take effect.

Who pays when a project needs a bigger grid?

In AEP Ohio’s service territory, regulators approved a dedicated data-center tariff in July 2025[157]. The tariff took effect July 23[158]: covered customers commit for an initial ramp-up period of up to four years plus eight more years. A pre-energization cancellation, or a delay exceeding twelve months, can leave the developer responsible for the full buildout cost. Minimum-demand charges and financial security reduce the risk that other customers inherit infrastructure built for demand that disappears. The minimum is a size-dependent demand formula, not simply an 85-percent charge on every unit of electricity.

There is an early sign that such terms change behavior. In September 2026, Ohio’s regulator reported[159] that the utility had seen a significant reduction in requests to study new connections after long-term commitments became necessary. That is useful evidence about speculative demand. It is not evidence that every household electricity cost has stopped rising.

Oregon offers a more direct rate example. In a September 2, 2026 report on its POWER Act[160], the state said implementation in Portland General Electric’s territory had reduced residential electricity rates by an average of 1.3 percent while increasing data-center rates by an average of 29 percent. Those are rates, not a promise about each household’s total bill. Nor was the result statewide: the same release said Pacific Power’s implementation review was still to come.

Wisconsin’s regulators changed the proposed terms rather than simply accepting them. In their April 24, 2026 decision on We Energies’ very-large-customer tariff[161], they extended the initial commitment to fifteen years, lowered the threshold from 500 to 100 megawatts, removed an option under which customers would pay only 75 percent of generation-facility costs, and required more reporting. The commission’s public explanation explicitly credited public engagement for movement on transmission-cost protection. The formal docket and final order[162] remain the place to follow the legal terms and any subsequent changes.

Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has adopted a separate GS-5 rate class for Dominion’s large-load customers[163]. Its new-contract protections include a fourteen-year service commitment, minimum payments covering at least 85 percent of transmission and distribution costs, and collateral obligations. The timing matters: the fourteen-year obligation applies to covered customers contracting for service on or after January 1, 2027. It is an adopted protection with a future start, not a description of every existing data center’s contract.

Georgia had already approved a rule in January 2025[164] allowing additional terms for new Georgia Power customers above 100 megawatts, addressing site-specific infrastructure and upstream generation, transmission and distribution costs. The rule also puts covered contracts before the commission for review. These are tools for allocating cost, not a guarantee that a utility will never overbuild or that wholesale power prices cannot rise.

Texas took a legislative approach. SB 6 was signed June 20, 2025[166]. Its enacted text directs large-load interconnection standards[165] for the ERCOT region, generally above 75 megawatts: proof of site control, disclosure of competing connection requests, a screening fee of at least $100,000 and financial commitments for infrastructure. It also directs emergency-curtailment arrangements. Those statutory instructions need implementing rules and operating procedures; enactment alone is not proof every safeguard is already operating.

Pennsylvania’s 2026 large-load model tariff[167] belongs in a different category again. It gives utilities a framework for protecting other customers and recovering costs from very large new loads. It is a model to be adopted or adapted through utility-specific proceedings, not one automatic new price schedule for the entire state. The existence of a framework is progress; its application is the next question.

Who gets told, and who gets a say?

Pennsylvania’s August 18 executive order[168] removes data centers from the state’s Permit Fast Track program and prohibits data-center NDAs for agencies under the governor. For projects above 25 megawatts, it ties review to documented local approvals and creates consent agreements for the governor’s GRID requirements. Projects that do not sign take a different, more restrictive review route. The order also directs annual energy and water reporting beginning July 1, 2027. It changes the process; it does not instantly produce the future reports or outlaw every private and municipal NDA.

Virginia’s September 18 executive order[169] restricts new NDAs that hide material project information from the public within the state executive branch, while preserving existing contractual commitments. It also excludes new projects of at least 25 megawatts from specified state site-readiness and expedited-review assistance. Work on noise rules, water-scarcity protections and cumulative generator emissions is directed, but much of that work still lies ahead.

Maryland’s September 23 order[170] creates a public project-assessment framework and directs a dashboard of projects and commitments. State executive agencies may not enter, renew or extend covered data-center NDAs; existing agreements are honored. The review considers costs, water, jobs, community benefits and decommissioning. A project denied a required local approval cannot receive an “Aligned” or “Conditionally Aligned” finding while that denial stands. This is a way to make state support answerable to a public record, with implementation still under way.

In Massachusetts, Executive Order 658, issued September 8[171], makes a community-benefits agreement a condition of state permitting for covered projects above 25 megawatts. Developers must also demonstrate conformity with the state’s development framework, and submit the environmental-justice office’s review of their agreement. The important change is where community benefits enter the process: before the qualifying state permits are issued.

Local rules can be less dramatic and just as concrete. Loudoun County’s March 2025 changes[174] moved data centers out of by-right approval into conditional or special-exception processes in affected areas, with grandfathering for qualifying earlier applications. Fairfax County’s September 2024 ordinance[175] added a 200-foot residential setback for buildings, additional separation for equipment, and noise studies before and after construction, subject to its exceptions. Those measures put location and the lived effects of a facility into the approval process.

Chandler, Arizona, supplies an earlier example[176]: rules effective in January 2023 required neighborhood communication, an on-site liaison, a baseline sound study, mitigation, and annual peak-operation noise studies for five years. The point of following up after construction is straightforward. A promise about noise can be compared with the noise people actually hear.

A federal proposal to open the negotiations

In Washington, Democrats Greg Landsman and Jamie Raskin and Republican Tom Barrett[185] introduced the No Secrets for Data Centers Act on September 24, 2026[186]. H.R. 10570 would make covered nondisclosure clauses unenforceable in court and arbitration when a public official is a party, or the agreement includes public funds, land or incentives. It would also bar public incentives conditioned on keeping project information confidential. Its definition covers facilities, or groups of facilities, exceeding 50 megawatts; it preserves certain confidential utility-regulator filings. As of October 16, it remained a proposal referred to House committees. The bipartisan sponsorship shows that the demand for disclosure reaches beyond one party; turning it into an enforceable national rule would still require legislation.

The ability to pause is part of having a choice

Sometimes the decision is to wait while rules catch up. New York’s July 14, 2026 order[172] pauses a defined category of state environmental permits while a statewide environmental review proceeds: new or pending discretionary data-center applications that had not already been declared complete by the Department of Environmental Conservation. It does not shut existing facilities or suspend every local permit. In September, the Public Service Commission issued a draft scope for the review[173], with public comments due October 20.

At the local level, Manatee County, Florida, adopted a twelve-month moratorium on October 8[177] on new data-center-related development applications in its unincorporated area. The county is using the pause to work on siting, electricity, water, noise and buffers. A temporary moratorium is not a permanent ban. It is a decision that a community needs rules before it takes on the next proposal.

Water has engineering answers, with limits

There are operating examples to learn from, too. In Quincy, Washington, a city-owned water-reuse system serving Microsoft opened in 2021[178]. The EPA’s case study describes a thirty-year arrangement under which Microsoft finances the $31 million capital investment and operating costs. It estimates that recycling cooling water saves 138 million gallons a year. The system still needs replacement water, including surface water and some groundwater. The lesson is not “no water use.” It is that design, public infrastructure and a contract can materially reduce a burden and determine who pays for it.

That is a more useful standard than a national average offered to a town with a particular aquifer or water system. Residents need to know what a proposed facility will withdraw, consume and discharge in their location; how those demands change in hot or dry weather; and what happens if the estimate is wrong. A better cooling design and an enforceable local agreement answer different parts of the same question.

Companies are making commitments. Delivery is the test.

The industry is responding on its own terms as well. Microsoft’s January 2026 Community-First AI Infrastructure plan[81] commits it to covering the electricity costs its facilities create, reducing water-use intensity, replenishing water, publishing regional water-use information and contributing to local tax bases and training. These are commitments to test over time. An improvement in water used per unit of computing does not, by itself, establish a reduction in total water use.

In March, Microsoft announced that it would stop using NDAs with local governments[82] and work through existing agreements worldwide to terminate them. Its explanation preserves protection for certain trade secrets and security information. That is a significant policy change, but it is more precise than saying every old agreement had already disappeared or every document was now public.

The White House’s March 4 Ratepayer Protection Pledge[181] brought the principle to a national stage. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed[182]. They committed to new power supply, the infrastructure needed to deliver it, and separate negotiated rates payable even when the power goes unused. The pledge itself describes those negotiations as voluntary. It cannot substitute for the utility orders and contracts that decide who pays in a particular place.

What happens when a developer opens up?

Some developers argue that openness helps projects move forward. In Bisnow’s June 9 report[187], DBT Data president and CEO David Tolson described a community that had rejected five earlier proposals whose developers withheld key details. He said DBT gained support after committing to share detailed plans with residents and other stakeholders before filing them: “We now have their support simply by engaging, being present and being transparent.” This was the developer’s account of one project. It puts a concrete practice behind the language of community engagement: explaining what is proposed while people can still respond.

The change has been uneven. At Ohio’s Joint Data Center Committee hearing on June 4[189], Microsoft discussed its decision to stop using local-government NDAs. Bisnow, citing Cleveland.com’s account, reported[187] that representatives of Google, Amazon and Meta declined to make the same commitment. Amazon subsequently changed its stated policy: by October, its published commitments said it no longer used NDAs with government agencies on its projects[180]. The June response captures a moment in that argument, not an unchanging position for all three companies. Amazon’s statement does not establish that every legacy agreement or contractor arrangement has been unwound.

Amazon’s October announcements also included a spending commitment: its Built Together program[179] pledges more than $1 billion of additional spending over five years in data-center communities, directed toward education, training, energy affordability and water. That is a five-year pledge, not money already delivered.

These changes are worth taking seriously without treating them as the end of the story. A company can announce a better policy while residents still have unanswered questions. A state can adopt stronger rules while a project remains contentious. A household can benefit from fairer cost allocation and still face an expensive electric bill. The case for hope is that people are acquiring specific ways to demand something better, and specific records against which to judge the response.

The original promise, again

None of this guarantees that the relationship will heal. Nor does a fairer data-center agreement resolve the concentration of wealth and power that runs through this story. But if communities can negotiate meaningful terms, see what was promised and hold someone accountable for delivery, the data-center fight could become a model for a different relationship with technology.

Time named “You” its 2006 Person of the Year on the idea that the many were gaining power. The breakup we have been tracing came, at its core, from the feeling that power had moved in the other direction: technology was becoming something done to people.

The changes that offer a way back have something in common. Parents choosing when a smartphone enters a child’s life. Teenagers trying to reclaim their time. Towns deciding what can be built, under what conditions, and at whose expense. Each gives people some say in what happens to them.

It may be that the way back to trusting technology runs through the same thing the original promise was always about: giving more people the power to shape their own lives.