I invested in Google and Facebook years before their first arrival and benefited extremely much. I was an early Facebook team advisor, but I'm appalled by the damages that are being made to these internet monopolies.
Technology has transformed our lives in countless ways, mainly for the good. Thanks to smartphones nowadays, technology touches us from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep. While smartphone convenience has many benefits, the undesirable consequences of genuine product choices have become a threat to public health and democracy.
Facebook and Google receive their advertising revenue, the effectiveness of which depends on earning and retaining the attention of the consumer. Borrowing techniques from the gambling industry, Facebook, Google and others exploit human nature by creating addictive behavior that forces consumers to control new messages, respond to notifications, and seek validity from technologies, the sole purpose Of which is to generate profits for the owners of..
People on Facebook and Google believe that giving consumers more of what they want and how it is worthy of praise rather than criticism. What they fail to recognize is that their products are not making consumers happier or more successful. Like gambling, nicotine, alcohol or heroin, Facebook and Google - most importantly through its YouTube branch - produce short-term happiness with serious negative consequences in the long run. Users fail to recognize warning signs of addiction until it is too late. There are only 24 hours a day, and technology companies are making a game for them all. CEO of Netflix recently noted that his company's main competitor is sleeping.
How does this work? A 2013 survey found that average consumers check their smartphones 150 times a day. And that number has probably increased. People spend 50 minutes a day on Facebook. Other social applications like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter combine to take more time. Those companies keep a profile for every user who grows whenever you like, share, search, buy or post a picture. Google is also analyzing the credit card information of millions of people.
As a result, large internet companies know more about you than you know yourself, which gives them great power to influence you, to persuade you to do things that serve their economic interests. Facebook, Google and others compete for each customer's attention, reinforcing prejudice and reducing the diversity of ideas to which each one is exposed. The rate of damage increases over time.
Consider a recent story from Australia where someone on Facebook told advertisers that they had the ability to target teens who were depressed or depressed, making them more sensitive to advertising. In the United States, Facebook once showed its ability to make users happy or bewildered by manipulating their news feed. Although it has not turned the capability into a product, it remains the fact that Facebook affects the emotional state of the user every moment of every day. The former label of Google design Tristan Harris calls this "brain hacking".
The fault here is not with research and social networking, by itself. These services are of great value. The guilt lies in business advertising models that encourage companies to maximize their attention at all costs, leading to increasingly aggressive brain drain.
The Facebook app has 2 billion active users all over the world. Google's YouTube has 1.5 billion. These figures are comparable to Christianity and Islam, respectively, giving Facebook and Google greater impact than most of the First World countries. They are too big and too global to be held accountable. Other eye-based applications - including Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, SnapChat and Twitter - also have a user base of between 100 million and 1.3 billion. Not all of their users have had their brains hacked, but everyone is on the road. And there are no observers.
Anyone who wants to pay for access to addicted users can work with Facebook and YouTube. Many bad people have done this. A firm was seized using Facebook tools to spy law-abiding citizens. A federal agency faced Facebook with regard to the use of its means by financial firms to discriminate on the basis of race in the housing market. America's intelligence agencies have come to the conclusion that Russia has intervened in our election and that Facebook was a major platform for spreading misinformation. For the price of several fighter jets, Russia won an information war against us.
The incentives are what they are, we can not expect the internet monopolies to polish themselves. There is little government regulation and there is no appetite to change that. If we want to stop brain drain, consumers will have to force changes on Facebook and Google.
Roger McNamee is the managing director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, and the investment partnership focused on content media / entertainment and consumer technology.
Yeah, Google and FB are both evil entities.
I don't think Google and Facebook are completely evil (because companies are composed of people) and these companies have afforded us some of the technology we're using today, which has improved the quality of life for many. Nonetheless, I did see the documentary Terms and Conditions Apply and I was not aware a user's information is sold to law enforcement. I mean when we're all signing the fine print, there is always a dreaded 'did I just sign my life away moment?' However, the manner in which the data being collected is used can be harnessed for good intentions, but a great deal of that data is being collected and manipulated for profit.
Yeah they are evil. The KKK and Nazi party are made up of people and I am sure some of those people do good things, yet the KKK and Nazis are still evil.
Maybe, it's time to divest. I read in an article, that divestment is a tool you can use if you feel you don't like a company's ethical practices or their company's ethics no longer correspond with yours. I don't agree with the environmental repercussions fracking causes AND unknowingly my 401k was saturated with this type of investment.