This recent piece by Seth Godin masterfully manages to summarize a lot of the things I've been having nightmares about of late.
As I mentioned in another recent piece about silicon valley culture, tech in the wrong hands is only as good as the use we make of it. Google, facebook and others refuse to be transparent about their practices and that leads to massive issues that negatively affect their users. So much for google's "don't be evil" bullshit mantra.
It is up to us to push back when dealing with companies that misbehave. Bob Hoffman whom you'll be able to hear from in an upcoming podcast, relentlessly talks about this in his weekly newsletter. I highly recommend it.
Let's support the businesses and endeavours that are peer-to-peer, autonomous and not for profit. Bonus points if it's open-source, as is the amazing work done by Helpful Engineering, which recently emerged spontaneously from a desire to make the world a better place.
Don't think that because we're part of the design industry this doesn't affect us. It does because we use these platforms every day to work and communicate what we do and they influence us in insidious ways without us noticing, like a frog being slowly brought to ebullition.
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