Thursday 2 August 2018

We've joined a cult and we didn't even realise

I always like to base my thinkings out loud on fact, and can generally cite my sources, but I've struggled to find where I saw this nugget of apparent truth that I'm going to riff off.  But as this posting depends on its veracity I'm just going to assume that my recall is accurate and that somebody else has fact checked.  Hopefully somebody outside of the Trump administration.

And this fact is that people (I assume Americans, it normally is) would pay $30,000 to keep the services provided by the likes of Google and Facebook if the threat of their removal, nay disappearance, was to be waved in front of them.  Presumably between them and their screens.

Yes, you read that right.  $30,000.  All depending on whether I've remembered rightly but, to be honest, that was element of the story that stuck in my mind.

Let's just unpack that.  Social media - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin - and the services that the FANGS provide are now so entwined, enmeshed in our everyday lives that we would happily pay half our income on never having to see the words 'wait 28 days for delivery' again.  So that we don't have to go back to waiting to see a TV show when it's scheduled.  So we don't have to actually travel to a shop to buy a CD.  So that a cat video is never more than a couple of clicks away, assuming we don't get distracted by a picture of a friend of a friend's dinner.

Half our salary.  Even the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God only takes 10%, although apparently Alpha won't bat an eyelid at the 50%.

I'm not sure that I'd pay anything if the whole interweb thing turned out to be a vivid dream after an especially good Stilton.  As long as it was a level playing field and we were all in the same boat.  It would be irritating, sure, but if the web were removed for me. and only me..  Actually, isn't that the same as being burgled and having your laptop stolen?  Would I pay anything in that scenario?  Of course not: I'm insured.  Or maybe it would mean that I'm Julian Assange...

I've implied that Amazon, Facebook, Google and the rest have formed a cult-like status, and if that's the case, then that's probably to their credit, a reflection on us not them, and thoroughly deserved.  But the image that forms in my mind, more than a cult is that of the pusher.  They've got us hooked on their wares.  But if they were to stop giving it out for free, where does that leave us?  Sweaty, pale and shaky.  And wanting our toys back.

Now, I don't want to paint a picture of Zuckerberg and the rest leaning out of the window of an ice cream van handing out single cigarettes to school children as a reality (mainly because I suspect they have some fairly decent lawyers), but as a dystopian what-if thought experiment, it's worth considering.

Like, what if the good and great of the web (and Zuckerberg - hey, only joking) have already formed a shady cartel, meeting Illuminati-like, and there's a date red-circled in their diaries and on that date, everything gets pulled unless we stump up.  Half our income.  Half global GDP.  That's about $67 trillion.  A year.  That puts the schemes of most Bond villains in the shade.  And the scary thing is that it has a stronger basis in reality than most sci-fi visions, utopian or dystopian. 

In the 60's we all believed love was free.  But there was a price to pay.  The 80's made us think the markets would rise forever, but they just came toppling down from on high.  Why the hell should we think all that information and functionality slopping back and forth on the net for free will last forever.  I'm sure it'll end; I'm only curious how.

#

Postscript - found my source; now I can sleep easy...

No comments:

Post a Comment