How Data From the Past Decade Powered the Economy of the Current One

In the 2010s, we witnessed the rise and consolidation of a phenomenon that completely changed the way we interact with technology: social networks. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many others quickly occupied our time, our attention, and above all, our content production. Some prospered and became giants, others did not survive. But all of them had one thing in common: data.

If there was one commodity that defined that decade, it was data. Social networks discovered early on that data was the real product. It was never just about likes or followers. It was about knowing what you consume, what you want, who your friends are, where you are, which language you speak, and even how you feel. This arsenal of information turned into targeted advertising and into a whole economy driven by behavioral segmentation.

Then came the shift. The 2020s arrived with the boom of artificial intelligence, and those same datasets that were already valuable became the foundation of a new revolution. Suddenly, the records that once served to show you ads for sneakers were now training language models capable of writing, coding, analyzing images, and solving complex problems. In other words, the last decade built the fuel for the transformation we are living today.

And the numbers are staggering. Estimates show that generative AI could add between 2.6 and 4.4 trillion dollars per year to the global economy. That impact is larger than the GDP of entire countries. But here is an important point: GDP has always been the go-to metric to measure economic growth, yet it is a misleading one. It measures flows of wealth but does not necessarily capture well-being, distribution, or sustainability. So when we talk about the economic impact of AI, the numbers are impressive, but they do not tell the whole story.

What is clear is that companies like Meta, X (formerly Twitter), and Google are at the center of this transformation for a reason. They control two decisive assets: traffic and data. Meta released its own model (LLaMA) to the world, X merged with xAI to become a massive data and intelligence machine, and Google continues to be the backbone of the internet with its ecosystem fueled by searches and interactions.

The case of Reddit is just as revealing. From being an online forum, it became such a valuable data source that its licensing revenue skyrocketed from 12 million to over 80 million dollars in a single year. In the end, we are seeing a cycle complete itself. Social networks created the data, data fueled AI, and AI now reshapes the economy (some people are already talking about a bubble). One thing is certain: the last decade paved the road for the revolution we are experiencing right now.