Pope Leo XIV has just written it in black and white in the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: “Technology is never neutral.” To many, it may sound like philosophy, but for those who touch code and balance sheets every day, it is an iron truth. The Pope is not talking about abstract ethics — he is talking about responsibility. And in Italy, where eight out of ten businesses are small or medium, this is no academic matter — it is daily bread.
Why does this matter now? Because it comes as Europe tries to regulate AI with the AI Act, as Big Tech pushes perpetual subscription models, and as thousands of Italian entrepreneurs must choose between a free tool that monetizes their data and a proprietary one that locks them into a lifetime fee. The choice is not neutral: every platform embeds values, constraints, hidden costs. We see it every day in the projects that land on our desk: companies that adopted AI solutions without reading the terms of service, without knowing where their customer data ends up, without calculating the real long-term cost. The Pope calls this “technical superficiality” — and he is right.
We, at Meteora Web, couldn’t agree more.
For eight years we have worked with SMEs across Italy, especially in the South. We have watched the digital divide become a power divide: those who do not understand technology end up being ruled by those who do. That is why our position is clear: technology is not neutral, and anyone who sells it as such is lying — or doesn’t understand their own job. A piece of software is not just a tool: it is a bundle of decisions about privacy, ownership, longevity, cost. When we choose between WordPress and Shopify, between an open-source CRM and a closed one, between a proprietary AI and one trained on transparent data, we are not making a technical choice — we are making a political and economic one. In Italy, where the productive fabric is fragile, this awareness is even more urgent. We cannot afford to entrust our digital future to black boxes whose inner workings we do not know.
So what should we do? Start with an audit. Not of the tools, but of the relationships: who owns the data? What will this platform really cost in two years? Who decides when updates happen? And above all: can we afford not to know? For an Italian business, the answer is no. Let’s stop buying technology like it’s a household appliance. Let’s start treating it for what it is: a fundamental choice that shapes revenue, freedom, and competitiveness. The Pope gave us the frame. Now it’s up to us to fill it with substance.
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