Lately I have been feeling we as builders had this responsibility to build the Internet that the world needed, and we failed. We were distracted, we got rich, we ignored or misread the needs of our fellow humans.
The walled gardens that we now find so insidious and creepy are due to our own failure to empower the users. We made HTTP, SMTP, XMPP protocols. Large companies brought these to the masses, in ways the masses can understand and interact with in their limited capacity... for a price.
Can we reclaim humanity's birthright? Can we build a vision of the world we wish to live in, that is accessible to and understandable by many? Or is our entire collective fate to become a monetized click stream of suckers?
This article names Google, but to me that is beside the point. Google is a large system set in motion by shareholders and market forces that has equilibrium. It consumes click streams and subscriptions, and excretes money, like others of its kind. Can such an organism ever serve the best interests of humanity all the time?
If you find yourself hating Google, better to look within yourself. Do you have the courage to walk away from these kinds of services and build an alternative, however humble it might be, that empowers and liberates your fellow humans?
I am still working on this in myself. My email is still gmail, I would miss some personalities in my G+ circles, but I am uncomfortable, and I find current trends unsettling.
The walled gardens that we now find so insidious and creepy are due to our own failure to empower the users. We made HTTP, SMTP, XMPP protocols. Large companies brought these to the masses, in ways the masses can understand and interact with in their limited capacity... for a price.
Can we reclaim humanity's birthright? Can we build a vision of the world we wish to live in, that is accessible to and understandable by many? Or is our entire collective fate to become a monetized click stream of suckers?
This article names Google, but to me that is beside the point. Google is a large system set in motion by shareholders and market forces that has equilibrium. It consumes click streams and subscriptions, and excretes money, like others of its kind. Can such an organism ever serve the best interests of humanity all the time?
If you find yourself hating Google, better to look within yourself. Do you have the courage to walk away from these kinds of services and build an alternative, however humble it might be, that empowers and liberates your fellow humans?
I am still working on this in myself. My email is still gmail, I would miss some personalities in my G+ circles, but I am uncomfortable, and I find current trends unsettling.
(edited for grammar)