Pope Leo XIV, in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, drops a line that should jolt every entrepreneur and developer: “Technology is never neutral”. It’s not a vague statement. It’s a concrete, economic, political verdict. It comes as artificial intelligence seeps into every business process and Big Tech decides for us what we can do with our own data.
At Meteora Web, we witness this every single day for almost eight years. A site built on a closed page builder is not neutral: it ties you to a recurring fee, prevents migration, and steals control. A free plugin with a backdoor is not neutral: it opens a breach that can cost a small business thousands. An ad campaign without proper pixel tracking is not neutral: it burns budget with zero return. Every technology choice is a power choice: whoever owns the stack sets the rules.
For Italian businesses – especially in the South, where we operate – this isn’t abstract. It’s the digital divide turning into an economic divide. Leasing a SaaS e-commerce platform forever means paying every month for features you could own. It means your margin is eaten by a fee, and if the provider raises prices or shuts down, you’re left without a storefront. We saw a clothing retailer lose control of their catalog because their ERP was third-party: when they switched vendors, historical data on seasons, sales, and margins became hostage. The technology wasn’t neutral – it was a cage.
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From Meteora Web, our position is clear: technological neutrality is a fairy tale for the naive.
Every line of code, every server choice, every framework adopted carries a hidden cost in freedom, security, and economic sustainability. We chose Laravel and Livewire precisely to avoid lifetime royalties. We built our own social media management platform because off-the-shelf solutions held our data hostage. And when a client comes with a WordPress site bloated with unused premium plugins, we convert it into a custom theme: fewer dependencies, more control, real margin. Because a site is measured in revenue, not compliments. And revenue depends on who holds the levers.
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So what to do? If you’re an entrepreneur or a developer in Italy, stop treating technology as a neutral tool. Every choice is political. Every platform is a contract. Run an honest audit of your stack: who owns your data? Can you export it? Can you migrate without losing years of work? For developers: choose open tools, avoid vendor lock-in, write code that stays yours. For business owners buying a site: don’t accept “subscription forever” as a business model. Demand ownership, transparency, and measurability. Technology is never neutral – but you can choose which side you’re on.
