For too long Big Tech has skirted regulations and is siphoning an outsized amount of profit from the economy without contributing back (Apple, Amazon), damaging the social fabric without care (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter), or consuming and aggregating vast amounts of personal data for profit (Google, Facebook).
Did anyone in tech not think the reckoning would come? “Are we the baddies?” It’s like working for Marlboro with hoodies and catered lunches.
But the bulk of the population shows little interest in attacking Big Tech, and as other commenters here have noticed, the government's willingness to step in and regulate has greatly diminished.
I'd love to think you're right, but these companies are mostly based in the US and make most of their profits in the US and China. I don't think the EU has enough leverage to radically change the status quo.
> damaging the social fabric without care (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter)
Without Facebook and Snapchat my parents would get something on the order of a written letter once a year and a call on their birthdays. With them they get to see daily life snaps on my story (usually funny things my wife or dog do, but whatever) and weekly Facebook photos of family events. It's much higher fidelity than written communication or phone calls and would make the social fabric stronger, not weaker.
I think being coy here about what you are talking about doesn't help your case. For example, the US election, the dominance of Facebook/Google/Amazon/Microsoft never came up, unless maybe you mean the discussion of "Fake News" that had no effect until 2017 anyway.
I keep hearing about this so-called backlash, the government is going to do this, the EU is going to do that. Yet Google/Facebook/Amazon et al's grip grows ever tighter. The bottom line is people have chosen these companies as the gatekeepers to the internet. I don't like it the least bit. Especially since it makes my life harder as a web site operator. I have to do everything I can to please the mighty Google and if I don't I'm as much as erased from the internet. It didn't used to be that way but that's how it is now. These companies have massive power and what the EU or anybody else plans to actually do about it is beyond me. We'll see.
That's because there is no such backlash. Those big companies will cause governments to create laws but those laws will only destroy tiny competitors, thus securing the position of the big players.
I suspect the backlash won't come from government, but from the "people". It will also not be directed exclusively at big tech, but at all tech - and to an extent all technicians. I don't see this occurring for another 5 years or so, but when (if) it does, it will not be pretty.
Why do you expect that to happen? Most people use Facebook, Amazon and Google all the time and are perfectly happy with them, ads included. (Edit: added a couple more big companies)
Is there an example of another business sector that was radically changed due to massive public outcry? I can't think of any. There's tobacco, maybe, but that was a long slow process of government regulation, and the tobacco companies are still around.
The real benefit is the underlying technology. A currency is more of a basic proof of concept for a blockchain application.
There are a few reasons blockchains are a game changer for decentralized apps.
1) It's vastly more difficult to cheat. (remember lying bittorrent clients which would break the rules to improve your download speed by spoofing your ratio?)
2) There is a built in system for compensation.
3) Writing a distributed application is very difficult. Platforms like Ethereum, Lisk, and EOS have done the most challenging aspects of this for you and provide varying levels of control vs ease of use via their APIs.
Valuations of the currencies are dramatically inflated right now but no matter what happens to price in the long term the underlying technology will be revolutionary even if every currency fails.
> I have to do everything I can to please the mighty Google
Like what? What specific things are you having to do today that you wouldn't have had to do in, say, 1998? What sort of behaviors have you learned get you penalized by Google?
Because I've kept running all my sites in the same, unassuming, no-SEO way for the last 20 years and they've always been fairly well ranked in their particular niche topics.
> Like what? What specific things are you having to do today that you wouldn't have had to do in, say, 1998?
Not going to go into my strategy. I'll just say what I do works for me. Until it doesn't. Like in March when Google made the so-called "Fred" update. Sites that had been running for years just like yours went from the 5th position on page one to somewhere on page 10. Some sites went from page 10 to page 1. On the whole it was a net negative with no rhyme or reason to it, i.e., some lower quality sites ranked higher and vice versa. By the way, none of these sites are spam, are cloaked, aren't https, no PBN crap, etc. They were just there one day and gone the next. Many many people had the same experience. If you didn't then that's great. My point is not woe is me, down with Google. My point is Google being a gatekeeper has an immense amount of power and a subtle change by them can mean the difference between being "on the internet" and off of it. Fortunately I have many sites so I'll survive but a lot of people don't.
In a way it is ironic. Twenty years ago, the great fear was that governments would regulate the internet. Now we hope that the governments will regulate the internet.
A third of the rise in the S&P 500 stock market index this year is attributable to Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
That may mean the advances these companies represent are becoming economically significant. Internet sales, for example, now represent 9% of total retailing.
Given the lobbying power of these economically important global business platforms it seems unlikely local 'government' will do very much to rock their boat...
>Given the lobbying power of these economically important global business platforms it seems unlikely local 'government' will do very much to rock their boat...
We are now in a far more globalized economy, and the US profits from the dominant FMAG stocks and hegemony. The EU will definitely attack this, whether they have teeth is questionable.
> There was a challenge to this idea at the end of the 20th century, when business school academics the late C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel claimed that the era of conglomerates was over.
> Although many large companies were broken up on the back of this mantra, there is little dispute that size is back - with a vengeance.
I think it's always a mistake to use a singular data point to proclaim if something is dead.
That said, consolidation has become the new norm. Companies and executives trying to either get into every other market or consolidating by buying other companies, hoping synergies will help them keep afloat. This all seems like a mistake.
Most of the consolidating companies don't achieve the "synergy" dream and end up with huge amount of debt. So, companies end up being sold for parts ie broken all over again.
As for the companies getting into every business imaginable, well, they end up spreading too far too thin without relevant expertise. In the end, there is no choice but to sell the loss making unit.
24 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 77.0 ms ] threadI find it a little scary to see how much worse the backlash might look like.
Did anyone in tech not think the reckoning would come? “Are we the baddies?” It’s like working for Marlboro with hoodies and catered lunches.
As a US citizen, thanks Europe!
> damaging the social fabric without care (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter)
Without Facebook and Snapchat my parents would get something on the order of a written letter once a year and a call on their birthdays. With them they get to see daily life snaps on my story (usually funny things my wife or dog do, but whatever) and weekly Facebook photos of family events. It's much higher fidelity than written communication or phone calls and would make the social fabric stronger, not weaker.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/11/facebook-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/15/facebook-just-admitted-that-...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/19/facebo...
https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-t...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/30/facebook-stud...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/health/facebook-study-narrow-m...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...
Is there an example of another business sector that was radically changed due to massive public outcry? I can't think of any. There's tobacco, maybe, but that was a long slow process of government regulation, and the tobacco companies are still around.
https://d.tube/ is a decentralized youtube.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/arcade-city-decentralized-blo...
Arcade city is a decentralized uber.
The same could be done for ebay and amazon.
I honestly believe dapps will bring us the free (as in speech) internet we were promised in the 90s.
I agree that decentralization is a potential solution here, e.g. services like Matrix, Mastodon.
Cryptocurrencies are currently a 'get rich quick' fad that won't help with winning back the internet.
There are a few reasons blockchains are a game changer for decentralized apps.
1) It's vastly more difficult to cheat. (remember lying bittorrent clients which would break the rules to improve your download speed by spoofing your ratio?)
2) There is a built in system for compensation.
3) Writing a distributed application is very difficult. Platforms like Ethereum, Lisk, and EOS have done the most challenging aspects of this for you and provide varying levels of control vs ease of use via their APIs.
Valuations of the currencies are dramatically inflated right now but no matter what happens to price in the long term the underlying technology will be revolutionary even if every currency fails.
Like what? What specific things are you having to do today that you wouldn't have had to do in, say, 1998? What sort of behaviors have you learned get you penalized by Google?
Because I've kept running all my sites in the same, unassuming, no-SEO way for the last 20 years and they've always been fairly well ranked in their particular niche topics.
Not going to go into my strategy. I'll just say what I do works for me. Until it doesn't. Like in March when Google made the so-called "Fred" update. Sites that had been running for years just like yours went from the 5th position on page one to somewhere on page 10. Some sites went from page 10 to page 1. On the whole it was a net negative with no rhyme or reason to it, i.e., some lower quality sites ranked higher and vice versa. By the way, none of these sites are spam, are cloaked, aren't https, no PBN crap, etc. They were just there one day and gone the next. Many many people had the same experience. If you didn't then that's great. My point is not woe is me, down with Google. My point is Google being a gatekeeper has an immense amount of power and a subtle change by them can mean the difference between being "on the internet" and off of it. Fortunately I have many sites so I'll survive but a lot of people don't.
That may mean the advances these companies represent are becoming economically significant. Internet sales, for example, now represent 9% of total retailing.
Above from Greg Ip/WSJ 'A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient'. https://www.wsj.com/.../a-tech-driven-boom-is-coming-please-...
Given the lobbying power of these economically important global business platforms it seems unlikely local 'government' will do very much to rock their boat...
They will do. They did it in the past. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antit...
We are now in a far more globalized economy, and the US profits from the dominant FMAG stocks and hegemony. The EU will definitely attack this, whether they have teeth is questionable.
> Although many large companies were broken up on the back of this mantra, there is little dispute that size is back - with a vengeance.
I think it's always a mistake to use a singular data point to proclaim if something is dead.
That said, consolidation has become the new norm. Companies and executives trying to either get into every other market or consolidating by buying other companies, hoping synergies will help them keep afloat. This all seems like a mistake.
Most of the consolidating companies don't achieve the "synergy" dream and end up with huge amount of debt. So, companies end up being sold for parts ie broken all over again.
As for the companies getting into every business imaginable, well, they end up spreading too far too thin without relevant expertise. In the end, there is no choice but to sell the loss making unit.