I pulled him close and laid it straight: the only computing infrastructure worth your trust is the one you control yourself. Don't own your hardware? Don't run your own nodes? Then you're just pledging allegiance to someone else's kingdom.

He gave me that blank stare, so I broke it down further.

Here's the thing about this space—nobody should be handing you compute on a silver platter. If the infrastructure isn't yours, if you're dependent on someone else's servers, their rules, their policies... you've already lost leverage. You become a servant in someone else's castle.

That's the whole point. In crypto and Web3, sovereignty over your own compute layer isn't optional—it's foundational. Own your stack or own nothing.