Saaay...Has Anyone Mentioned The Round Down Resemblance Of Apple's Headquarters To A Panopticon? (The Novel Surveillance Capitalism)
So there's this $5 Billion edifice inward California:
Which, without also much effort, evokes this inward Illinois:
That's from Nov 2016's "Can your metropolis modify your mind?" (Jeremy Bentham does a cameo).
And here's the headline floor from Prospect Magazine, a major, major piece:
How the cyberspace controls you
John Naughton / Jan 19, 2018
Which, without also much effort, evokes this inward Illinois:
The linked article used a photograph of Illinois' Stateville Prison which reminded me of this from Alex Wellerstein, historian of scientific discipline at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
I similar the persuasion of Santa equally Panopticon. Bummer kid, ho, ho, ho...
And here's the headline floor from Prospect Magazine, a major, major piece:
How the cyberspace controls you
John Naughton / Jan 19, 2018
Corporate giants receive got created an only novel surveillance capitalism. And we're also hooked to tending
The “dust of exploded beliefs,” the English linguistic communication aphorist Geoffrey Madan in 1 lawsuit wrote, “may brand a fine sunset.” We’re showtime to run into that glow over the cyberspace which, if you lot count dorsum to the blueprint stage inward the spill of 1973, is similar a shot over 4 decades old.
From the 2d the cyberspace firstly opened for semi-public work inward Jan 1983, it evoked utopian dreams. It was piece of cake to run into why. Cyberspace—the term coined past times the novelist William Gibson for the virtual infinite behind the screen—really did look to last a parallel universe to “meatspace,” the term invented past times Grateful-Dead-lyricist-turned-essayist John Perry Barlow for the messy physical footing that nosotros all inhabit. Cyberspace inward the 1980s was a glorious sandpit for geeks: a footing amongst no corporations, no crime, no spam, no loathe speech, relatively civil discourse, no editorial gatekeepers, no rule too no purpose for those meatspace masters whom Barlow called the “weary giants of flesh too steel.”
But then, gradually, the cyberspace was commercialised too those ii parallel spaces merged to practise our networked world, inward which the affordances of cyberspace combine amongst surveillance too corporate control. Of course, the cyberspace has brought huge benefits inward damage of access to information too efficiency of communication: essay imagining our abode or move lives without it. But in that location are serious worries. The online footing is populated past times several billion generally passive addicts of devices, apps too services created past times a handful of corporate giants. Prying governments too giant companies receive got acquired the capacity to surveil our every move, both on the cyberspace and, similar a shot that therefore many devices receive got built-in GPS, inward the existent footing too. Through their might to monitor our searches these companies—as good equally the governments they co-operate with—are able to run into our innermost thoughts too desires. (Yes, fifty-fifty our desires: what people search for on Google is incredibly revealing.)
It all creates the potential for unprecedented manipulation, and—rather suddenly—worries are piling upwards well-nigh how that network applied scientific discipline is disrupting our society, warping our children’s development, our politics too our lives. Even the digital evangelists are having 2d thoughts. In Nov 2017, Sean Parker, the firstly President of Facebook, defendant the social network of exploiting “vulnerability,” amongst “God only knows” what effects on “our children’s brains.” In the same month, Chamath Palihapitiya, a one-time Facebook Vice-President, said social media firms had created “tools that are ripping apart the social stuff of how guild works.”
The answer, equally Hemingway said of going bankrupt, is firstly piece of cake too too therefore really quickly. The tipping indicate came inward 2007 amongst the launch of the iPhone, a production whose bright marketing too slick blueprint would brand the smartphone mainstream. Most people similar a shot transcend online using such a device. This is pregnant because, dissimilar PCs too laptops, most smartphones are closed devices, tightly controlled past times manufacturers too network operators. The switch to mobile brought a abrupt growth inward corporate power.
The potential for corporate capture of the internet, however, was ever there, thank you lot to a wider ready of characteristics of digital technology: null marginal costs (it costs Google adjacent to goose egg to register 1 to a greater extent than Gmail account); the might of network effects inward cyberspace; the authorization of “power law” distributions, which Pb to a small-scale issue of firms or actors dominating acre everyone else languishes inward the so-called “long tail”; technological lock-in, where a proprietary technical measure becomes the manufacture standard; and, most novel too most disturbing, the capacity for comprehensive surveillance.
Listen: John Naughton discusses the spider web of command amongst Prospect editor Tom Clark
The firstly 4 of these properties tend to enable winner-takes-all outcomes. And the concluding has enabled non only the ubiquitous country surveillance which whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed to an alarmed footing through his revelations well-nigh the National Security Agency inward the United States, but also a novel concern model for cyberspace companies: “surveillance capitalism.” In this arrangement, the companionship provides gratis services inward render for unlimited access to users’ personal information too information trails, which are too therefore refined, packaged too sold to advertisers.
Perhaps nosotros should non last therefore surprised that the techno-visionaries’ utopian dreams receive got given agency to a profiteers’ pleasance garden. This has been the pattern amongst every breakthrough inward communications technology. The legal scholar Tim Wu showed inward his mass The Master Switch (2011) a magisterial history of communications media inward the 20th century, that each technology—the movies, the telephone, broadcast radio too television—went through a similar cycle. It would start out gloriously chaotic, creative, opened upwards too free, but was eventually captured past times corporate interests, sometimes abetted past times the state. Wu’s large inquiry was would the same occur to the internet?
We similar a shot know the answer. The network—and the tech industry—is dominated past times 5 huge corporations: Apple, Alphabet (the possessor of Google), Amazon, Microsoft too Facebook. Four of them—Apple, Alphabet, Amazon too Microsoft—are the most valuable companies inward the world. Valuations bob about, but at some recent moments Facebook has been inward 5th place. All five, then, are giant companies, but in that location are crucial differences betwixt them. Whereas Apple, Amazon too Microsoft are extraordinarily disruptive inward all sorts of ways (for only 1 example, run into Houman Barekat on publishing) they are also recognisably conventional businesses which furnish goods too services to paying customers. The other two, past times contrast, are masters of a novel surveillance capitalism. The billions of people who work Google too Facebook are non their customers. Instead, advertisers are—which has given ascension to the mantra “if the service is free, too therefore you lot are the product.”
Many of the grumbles well-nigh Apple, Amazon too Microsoft are much the same equally those that were heard well-nigh monopolists of the past. But the same charges are not, perhaps, heard quite therefore often, or pressed quite therefore hard, against Google too Facebook. This is non because they are whatsoever less dominant inward the sectors they operate inward than the other three. Between them, the brace concern human relationship for over seventy per cent of information traffic on the internet; they also receive got two-thirds of US digital advertising revenues. Google’s portion of the search marketplace ranges from 80-95 per cent, depending on the territory. Over lxxx per cent of smartphones work Android, Google’s mobile operating system. That sounds pretty unopen to a monopoly....MUCH MORE
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