The public seems to be aware that it's a hype driven grift, much more so than when it was a flood of DTC dot-coms, or plowing fiber to nowhere. There's so much money sloshing around that people correctly believe the potential for corruption of their supposedly representatives is rife.

People know Kevin O'Leary isn't a real businessman, and the crypto bros pivoting to AI data centers are scammers. The incentives, especially property tax concessions, all look like corporate welfare. Who in the right mind would support Larry Ellison getting a tax break?

I'm sure it's more than the cost of memory. The person that does all of their computing on their phone doesn't care. They do care that aspect of life is infected with this shit. From the useless "AI" chatbot that is really just a reskin of their old POS chatbot (or an "Actual Indian"), to the U. S. government talking about giving money to these companies ('cuz ol' Larry and Elon need the money), all the way to the tech bros that will...not...shut up about it. And to drive it all, we'll need to put a jet engine next to your house, sorry.

Cryptocurrency was mildly annoying, then AI said "hold my beer...".

They're venting their anger on social media apps, which are powered not by datacenters but by an invisible angel that takes your message and places it on everyone else's phone.

Arming the dumbest among us with smartphones aka portable TV studios was one of the biggest mistakes we made as a society.

The mass data center build out is only partly driven by AI. There is a big cloud capacity crunch across the big providers, has been for a while and it is getting worse.

Investors, thats what is driving it. AI is the only thing venture capital has cared about since 2022, so the people who earn fortunes from sucking on the VC teat are following the money. It doesn't matter if the data centers are worthless in five years, they will have extracted wealth from building them.

Investors chasing the ideal of not having to employ any people while still making money somehow. And, of course, being the company to provide all the AI; in a gold rush, don't dig for gold, start selling buckets.

> We should all keep in mind that foreign interests, primarily China, are astroturfing to drive resentment in the USA against AI and datacenters.

I'm pretty sure the economics of it for the average citizen takes care of the resentment all by itself. No need for elaborate conspiracy theories.

There really isn’t a need for foreign interests to artificially boost the negative sentiments towards data centers, hyperscalers are doing a pretty terrible job at getting the public onboard

China is not the enemy.

Why would they lose tax revenue? I imagine these small cities gain tax revenue, but this doesn’t really drive NIMBY politics.

That is fair. Data centers are being built in my town, and indeed the city does not seem to care what people think.

I ran the numbers based on some averages, and property tax revenue at a 50% discount would bring in about a billion dollars a year for a city of around 23k people.

I just am not sure why the city cannot be transparent about data centers offsetting property taxes. They also do not make it clear on their website that there is no water capacity issue. People are going to be mad no matter what though. I think for some this is a proxy issue, and what really is driving them is distrust of big tech and wealth inequality.

I also suspect some of the social media backlash may be an astroturfing campaign. Accounts idle for years all of a sudden posting daily the same talking points.