Pope Leo XIV just released the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. One central statement: “Technology is never neutral.” Simple words, massive consequences. The Vatican isn’t talking pixels or servers; it’s talking power. Whoever controls the algorithm controls choices. For those working in digital in Italy, this isn’t theology—it’s the concrete problem we face every day.
The encyclical lands as Brussels debates the AI Act, caught between bureaucratic red tape and Big Tech lobbying. The risk? Rules written at a desk by people who have never touched a server, ending up penalizing small businesses. A business owner in Sciacca or Catania shouldn’t worry about abstract compliance: they need to know whether the digital tool they use makes them stronger or more dependent.
We, at Meteora Web, see “non-neutrality” every day. The American cloud that holds your data hostage. The free plugin that turns into a lifetime subscription after two years. The social platform that changes its algorithm and kills your sales. That’s not bad luck—it’s power architecture.
Our position is clear: technological neutrality does not exist, and those who claim it are hiding their own interest.
Every technical choice is political. Owning your stack versus renting a SaaS solution isn’t an aesthetic preference: it’s deciding whether your business depends on a provider in California or on yourself. We built proprietary platforms with Laravel precisely for that reason: full control, no lifetime fees. When a server lost its SSL renewal, we fixed it and automated it without taking the client offline. It sounds like a technical detail, but it’s digital sovereignty.
And then there’s accounting: we come from that world—balance sheets, double-entry bookkeeping. We know how to measure the real cost of technology. And the cost of not owning it is huge. Italian SMEs must not be passive consumers of AI. They must become protagonists: use artificial intelligence to amplify their skills, not delegate blindly. As the encyclical says, humanity must remain central. We say: the entrepreneur must remain in command.
What to do, concretely? First: be wary of “free solutions” that turn you into the product. Second: demand algorithm transparency—if you use an AI tool, ask what data it was trained on and who owns it. Third: invest in training. The digital divide is also geographic: a Sicilian company can beat a Milanese one if it understands technology better. Let’s start there: from domain to revenue, a single interlocutor who thinks in numbers, not trends.
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