Is Data Really the New Oil?
I’ve always liked a good metaphor. They make you sound clever, even when you’re not. And few have been sung more often than “data is the new oil.” It’s the conference classic, everyone belts it out, no one remembers who wrote it, and yet it still fills the room.
Clive Humby, a Tesco Clubcard mathematician, coined it back in 2006. He was right to spot that the raw stuff of modern commerce had shifted from hydrocarbons to hard drives. Crude oil, when refined, powered the 20th century, similarly, refined data drives the 21st.
But the comparison only goes so far. Oil is sticky, scarce, and finite. Data is cheap, infinite, and multiplies like rabbits. If oil was the black gold of industry, data’s more like glitter, gets everywhere, is impossible to clean up, and you’ll still find it on you years later.
Still, the metaphor endures because there’s something in it. Look at Microsoft. Its latest earnings, according to its own investor statements, show that nearly all its growth now comes from Azure and AI. In other words, from processing data about data. Meta, meanwhile, continues to auction off our attention in a digital cattle market, selling microseconds of human curiosity to the highest bidder. Neither company sells a physical product you can hold. They sell refinements, and the raw material is us.
Then there’s Tesla, which isn’t really a car company at all. It’s a roving data operation disguised as an automaker. Every vehicle is a sensor on wheels, sucking up billions of miles of driving footage. Tesla’s valuation has less to do with its batteries than with the promise of autonomous driving models trained on that vast rolling dataset. It’s not metal that protects Tesla, it’s metadata. The company has built a moat not from factories, but from information.
The trouble is, the oil metaphor hides the mess. Anyone who’s seen an oil spill knows it doesn’t just stain, it smothers. Data can do the same. Think of Cambridge Analytica, that swamp of Facebook profiles siphoned off to tilt elections. Or the 23andMe breach, where millions of genetic records slipped through the cracks. Unlike oil, data doesn’t burn off. Once it’s out, it’s out, and no number of interns or PR statements will mop it up.
Some say data isn’t oil at all, it’s plastic: cheap, shiny, and choking the ecosystem. Companies hoard it, clogging servers with outdated spreadsheets. AI systems gorge on this junk and hallucinate when the diet turns bad. The result? Biased hiring algorithms, faulty credit scores, and “predictive” policing that could predict injustice.
And here’s the irony, most companies don’t even realise how valuable their data is. They guard their office Wi-Fi passwords like state secrets but leave their crown jewels, customer insights, operational records, trade patterns, lying around like spare change. Data should be treated like capital, protected, insured, and put to work wisely. The firms that take security and stewardship seriously won’t just dodge the next leak, they’ll own the refinery.
Because the lesson of oil still applies. Oil didn’t just fuel cars; it built fortunes, empires, and monopolies. It powered progress and polluted the planet in equal measure. We’re watching the same pattern play out with data. When a handful of companies control the pipelines and the refineries, the servers, platforms, and algorithms, the rest of us are tenants, paying rent in the currency of our own information.
So yes, data is the new oil, but not in the way the conference slides promise. It powers, pollutes, enriches, and corrodes, sometimes all before lunch. Its worth depends entirely on what we do with it. Hoard it blindly, and it’s just sludge in a tank. Refine it properly, responsibly, and it lights the world, or at least, a well-run company. Perhaps?
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