With great power comes great responsability....
By Alex R. · 19 September 2026
Do you remember this quote? I do , I was young when Spiderman first came out. I was old enough to know superheroes are not a thing, but somehow I felt better knowing that in an alternate univers there is someone that cares about the little guy....
"With great power comes great responsibility."
We all know the line. Most of us learned it from a comic book. It stuck because it felt true.
Well, now we have the power.
Everyone has it
AI is in everyone's hands. A shop owner can write adverts in seconds. A council can study its whole high street in an afternoon. A government can build tools for thousands of small businesses at almost no cost.
We have more power than ever before.
And we're using it for almost nothing.
The little guy is still alone
Your local bakery. The hardware shop. The woman who makes candles at the market. They're struggling, and they're closing, one by one.
Meanwhile, the big players use AI to grow even bigger. Amazon can beat any small shop on price and speed.
The small shop doesn't lose because it's worse. It loses because nobody is helping it.
Everyone is waiting
Governments say it's the market. Councils say there's no budget. Agencies write another report. And we click "buy now" because it's easier.
Everyone is waiting for a hero.
What we could do tomorrow
Councils could give every local shop free AI help: websites, stock tracking, online orders.
Towns could build one shared online shop for all their independents, with local delivery.
Governments could stop big platforms from using sellers' own data against them.
And we could buy local once a week. Just once.
None of this is hard. It just needs someone to care.
No one is coming
Superheroes aren't real. We knew that as kids. But the responsibility is. And right now it belongs to anyone with the power to help: governments, councils, agencies, and us.
The little guy doesn't need a hero in another universe. He needs us, in this one.