Is The Tide Turning On Our Tech Giants?

Hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20.

It’s easy to read a history book and accept the way world events have unfolded. 

 That Napoleon would lose when his troops were unable to get sufficient supplies to tackle the harsh Russian winter. That the Roman Empire would collapse when they spent more energy on lavish and decadent events in the Colosseum than governing their territories. That Communism would collapse under its own structural deficiencies regardless of how many nuclear weapons the Soviets had.

 Easy in hindsight. 

 Not so easy if you’re a French Emperor, a Roman Gladiator or an East German teenager living behind the Berlin Wall when these events were occurring.

 After all there was a time that France, Rome and the Soviet Union were considered unassailable, even invincible.

I sometimes wonder what the history books will say in 30, 40 or 50 years about the times we live in today.

About BREXIT.

 About the types of politicians that seem to be gaining popularity around the world.

About the business behemoths that operate almost every aspect of our lives in 2019.

 On the bright side, I sense that popular opinion is changing rapidly. That the unassailable and invincible veneer is beginning to show cracks and something new is starting to surface.

 Regular readers of my posts will know I’ve long held some outspoken views on some of the technology giants that feature so prominently in our lives and in our media. Some have actually labeled me a techno-pessimist because I’ve not been enamoured with Facebook, Google’s YouTube, UBER, Lyft, AirBnb as many others have.  

The truth is I’m a techno-optimist.

I strongly believe that technology can be a huge accelerant of change and business success.

 And that technology can be a force for good, opening up markets and opportunities that previously didn’t exist.

Particularly when it ensures those who build legitimate business models or create genuine value are rewarded.

 The past decade has, sadly, shown that there isn’t always a positive correlation between business opportunity and societal impact. In fact, some of our most celebrated, studied and feted technology organizations have built significant businesses – and wealth – through business models which have had a net negative impact on society and opportunity.

 Here’s what I believe the history books will show us.

 Our data and our privacy can’t be exploited.

Consumers have woken up to how much of their data resides inside Facebook and others and that realization worries them. And as almost-daily reports of how that data has been leaked, hacked, shared without consent, mishandled and abused by those companies, consumers – and regulators – are taking a much harder look at the operations and governance of these organizations. 

  In the past customers may have willingly, often blindly, given scads of their data over to these firms to “be connected” or for the “convenience” of sharing cat videos with friends but that ignorance has evaporated. Today there are calls for more oversight, more government regulation – and even for technology firms to be broken up or taxed differently – because the status quo is no longer working. 

History will show that the notion that companies, with questionable business models, could reap the benefits of OUR data and we paid them to connect us was lunacy. 

Those who build genuine products and services,not dark “data brokers”,is where true value resides

 From UBER to Expedia to Facebook to Airbnb we’ve seen powerful “brokers” or “middlemen” appear between those who create value and those customers who seek those services. At one time, there was value to be gained from the aggregation of these services and the “convenience” of one-stop shopping. But the value these aggregators provide is being called into question more and more.

Watching the current frenzy around the Lyft and UBER IPO’s – two companies that continue to hemorrhage cash, have yet to turn a profit and readily admit they don’t see profit in their foreseeable future – is indicative of a turning point in my opinion.

It will be fascinating to watch the fallout from the looming strikes both companies face from their drivers. After all it’s the drivers who actually create the utility, service and value both companies flaunt. The tide is turning on these brokerage models. 

 Ad Revenue models are systemically broken

  Many of our largest organizations begun with an altruistic desire to “connect us” but, a decade later, that desire has morphed into a relentless drive to create more ways to bury our heads in our devices while hoovering up our data. When large parts of your business model relies on driving clicks and eyeballs – and monetizing our attention – there is a significant societal downside in how you subsequently operate and grow your revenue.  

When the design of your platforms relies on click-bait content, filter bubbles and confirmation bias it can’t be any wonder when we see a concurrent rise in societal divisiveness and more and more inflammatory rhetoric. And when those same platforms require us to carefully construct and “curate” our lives to build airbrushed, perfect lives – lives that bear scant resemblance to our real ones – can we be surprised when we see mental health issues, stress and anxiety rise amongst our populations? 

Politics and Social Media just don’t mix

 The combination of the attention-monetizing models of social media and the “fluid” agendas of most politicians makes for a Faustian tragedy. While the reports of deep meddling in the US elections may be the most extreme example of how social networks can be manipulated, the relentless agendas of politicians create some of the most dangerous and combustible content on those platforms. 

Misleading or blatantly inaccurate political content is spread too easy – and without any oversight – to an unsuspecting and trusting audience. Social media’s filter bubbles make it just too easy for politicians to stoke the most vocal (and fringe) elements of their constituencies and create the illusion that those views are widely held and gaining in popularity. 

When civil debate is replaced by vitriolic divisiveness, democracies suffer. And while Facebook attempts to assure everyone, for the umpteenth time, that they are making some efforts in monitoring and censoring the most extreme and sickening content on their platform, they bear significant responsibility for creating the environment in which this happened.

Each of us bore some responsibility for this

It would be too easy to blame all these situations on some large faceless organization that was invisibly pulling strings behind our backs. Truth is each and every one of us bears some complicity in how our world currently operates. 

When we buy the stocks of companies that are known to flaunt regulations and avoid taxes, we’re complicit. 

When we choose to use an app knowing the organization has repeatedly mishandled our data and abused our privacy, we’re complicit. 

When we don’t use our voice and our votes to compel politicians to create debate not division, then we’re complicit. 

Again, for the record, I still look at our world with hope and optimism. 

I see signs that some of the inequalities and inefficiencies in our current systems are starting to collapse and be replaced by more effective - and more equitable - models. 

That makes me rejoice.

Ultimately each of us is responsible for our actions and where we choose to invest our time, our energies and our money. 

Together we’re capable of creating this bright future. 

 And there’s no better time than today to start.

 After all, as George Santayana’s sagely warned “Those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”