Have you ever thought about who the internet is? Or who owns the internet? It is very interesting to learn about such conspiracy theories, which often revolve on Reddit. \u201cGoogle is the internet.\u201d That is a bold belief floating around a recent Reddit thread on r\/IndiaTech, and it is the kind of statement that makes you pause mid-scroll. The conversation started when user @limsus shared a tweet by X user Arin Verma, and it is a doozy.<\/p>\n
Who owns the internet?<\/p>\n
Verma laid out the case like a tech manifesto: Google owns 14% of Anthropic, 8% of SpaceX, runs AI platforms like Gemini<\/a>, powers Claude with its own TPU chips, dominates search with 90% of global queries, and runs YouTube. Oh, and it also controls Android, manages ads, email, cloud, and browsers, while quietly mapping the world via Google Maps. \u201cGoogle is the internet,\u201d Verma highlighted.<\/p>\n Reddit weighs in<\/p>\n Cue the Redditors with a sense of perspective and humour. One commenter pointed out that TATA Communications<\/a> runs one of the largest fibre optic networks in the world, carrying perhaps a quarter of global internet traffic. \u201cIf they shut down, Google will have to mail your search results by post :P\u201d they quipped. The comment garnered laughs, but it also pinpoints an important truth: what we see online may not be the whole story.<\/p>\n Perception vs. reality<\/p>\n The thread quickly turned into a debate about what \u201cthe internet\u201d really is. Google\u2019s reach is undeniably massive and shaping what billions see, search for, and watch daily. But the physical backbone<\/a>\u2014the cables, servers, and networks that make our instant access possible, is a far less glamorous world, run by telecoms, data centres, and undersea fibre.<\/p>\n