| If there is a tech backlash, it's not about Bay Area gentrification, which is a local issue and happens in urban areas around the world. The fact that in SF the money comes from tech is irrelevant. (The cognitive dissonance of the fortunate techies on HN who refuse to acknowledge that they are no different from self-centered 80's finance yuppies is amusing, but nothing new is happening here.) The more universal backlash is about the industries arrogant disregard for existing values, regulations, social conventions and traditions. As if anything done by non-techies is inherently inferior, disruption has become an ideology. Similar to "greed is good", tech promotes the ideology "disruption is good". Millions who see their society mutilated, their rights trampled and their livelihoods disappearing do not agree. We like to see ourselves as the good guys, and things like the NSA spying or the British censorship filter as the work of the bad guys. As far as the general public is concerned however, they are two sides of the same coin: technology as a means for the elite to take away what once was theirs. That is the backlash we may soon be facing. And that backlash may not distinguish between the NSA, the mighty Google empire and your plucky little start up. |