
Why the world hates silicon valley - ChuckMcM
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/17/silicon-valley-takeover-468182.html
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ChuckMcM
(Warning autoplaying video/audio)

This came up on my blendle feed and I found myself agreeing with it. The two
points that really stuck out were Uber and maps.

With something like Uber, 20% of the cab fare leaves the country of origin and
goes to Uber as opposed to staying local. That seems kind of small but
extrapolate the implication of that. It is money that won't be spent in the
local economy. This extraction of GDP through "rent seeking"[1] type
businesses from one economy to another can be very destabilizing.

The other was Maps, in particular Google Maps which has pretty much decimated
a lot of jobs that people did to put maps in stores and gas stations etc.
Google has done such a thorough job of mapping things that it makes it
impossible to survive selling maps.

[1] Rent seeking in the economic context is a business which is paid a 'rent'
by third parties who enact the business, so Uber drivers giving 20% of their
fare to the parent company is a 'rent', Apps on the iOS app store giving 30%
of their revenue is a 'rent', etc.

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mpbm
For those who won't/can't make it through the article:

\- overarching theme is that "Silicon Valley is Rome in the time of Caesar";
things are good now because the winners win so big that they slurp up money
from all over the world and get to spend it suing Gawker into bankruptcy.

\- minor theme is that "The Donald Trump phenomenon has been largely fueled by
voters angry that their jobs are getting reamed by technology"

\- SV companies are swinging so much influence and money they're competing
with nation states;

\- 12/20 of the most valuable tech companies in 2015 are in SV (representing
87% of the revenue); none outside of America, China and Japan. 11/12 in
America are in SV.

\- the top 3 phone apps in India are owned by Facebook, and the vast majority
of the phones run iOS or Android

\- Uber takes 20% of every fare back to SV, wherever it operates

\- Alphabet controls 12% of global ad spending

\- "Atoms" America is in trouble; "Bits" America is doing really well

\- when smart people anywhere in the world want to build a tech company, they
go to SV; some investors don't even bother looking outside of SV anymore

\- tech makes things cheap/free, which means people can't earn money doing
those things anymore; there used to be lots of map makers and map sellers, now
there's just Google

\- "If you put all the current trends together, it seems obvious Silicon
Valley will become the most powerful place on earth at the expense of just
about everywhere else on earth. The one thing that might derail the Silicon
Valley express would be something like the Russian Revolution, in which the
workers rise up against the autocracy."

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nitwit005
Couldn't read the whole article due to interrupting ads.

