| I agree, and I have a "nutty" conspiracy theory to explain why things are this way: Social media is simply the middle class and the tax payers paying for investments in technology. The U.S. government inflates the money supply, through bailouts and zero interest loans, for banks, who refuse to lend to the general public. However, this money can not sit on the sidelines, since inflation the cash itself creates cause it to lose value so tons of it end up in wacky technology investments. It does not matter which type the investor is — angel or some other sort of creature. A billionaire or a friendly neighbour. Everybody wants to invest as much money they get from banks as loans and as little of their own as possible. The money the banks give ultimately comes from the middle class that consumes these services (can't really call them products can we?) in the first place. Thus the middle class is paying a bunch of middle men and lucky dorks with it's own money to invent these services and they will be later paying lots more to "enjoy" them. Nevermind the loss of privacy, which is simply an icing on the cake. Question: if these are social technologies shouldn't the State be doing these types of investments in the first place? Or if they are social in the other sense, in terms of authentic grass-roots and anti-state citizenry — shouldn't social media be about personal blogs, news feeds, videos etc..? |