“ So announce yourself as a proponent of the platform theory, or sign on as a rabid Internet behaviorist, or a no-baloney cost-cutter, or a Murdochian Big Media avenger, or a new-machine enthusiast, or a believer in the power of Eros as the prime mover of technology or that what’s good for Google is good for America. And I invite you to hypothesize with me that this year Facebook will buy Twitter, that Google will buy Skype (or, to hedge my bets, vice versa), and that search will make its way into our collective emotions and psyche (“If you’re not searchable,” says Jarvis, “you’ll never be found”), and that, because while behavior certainly changes it also remains the same, there will emerge, online, program formats and even a daytime and a prime time, all produced incredibly cheaply. But, I fear, what I have not communicated about the vagaries of the next big thing is exactly what you might miss in a description of all the varieties of socialism that did battle once upon a time. Behind these theories of how this new world will be organized and how best it will serve humankind lies a Manichaean struggle that pits good against evil, control against freedom, one man’s Establishment against another’s new order, with every entrepreneur and engineer believing that he or she can run your life better than any other entrepreneur or engineer—and certainly better than you.
michael david
a tribute to my favorite foods, sites, reads, and sounds...and some of my thoughts...but not too many
February 9, 2010
