Yeah sure, but 1) prior to needing DCs, people need clean drinking water, and 2) the subset of people who need DCs is vastly smaller than those who need clean drinking water.
What exactly is a data center by your definition? What individuals (that are entirely disconnected from corporations) need them? How many individuals have personal data centers of such a scale that they would need to produce liquid water on-site for their computing needs?
I genuinely believe you’ve described an entirely theoretical person that doesn’t reside in this universe.
People need institutions to run functioning societies. These (public) institutions are one of the most traditional users of large-scale computing. Even in 60s there was a lot of computing done by public institutions. To fulfill the requirements of modern life, DCs are a must.
Most modern buildings have at least few racks of compute/storage for services like TV/phone/internet, camera recordings, etc. Even family houses have small racks nowadays.
This site is likely not hosted out of a person's closet, hence you commenting here is likely a product of a data centre.
Ignoring this specific example, a majority of the population uses social media for leisure and online tools for work (email, banking, etc.).
A majority of interconnects between ISPs and networks are hosted in data centres too... so there wouldn't be much of an internet without them.
If you closed all data centres over night, the majority of the above would disappear and certainly would not be able to scale as large as it had without data centres... hence, a majority of people need data centres to maintain their current standard of living.
The comment said "people", not "individuals" or "a person".
And considering how highly technical something like a modern water treatment plant can be, data centers are already a major force behind some of our potable water.
