Tech giants are too big…
Do you often feel like you’re David vs. Goliath when confronting the tech giants? You should! You don’t even have a slingshot to use in any individual confrontation. And you’re not alone. The courts are way out of their league too. In fact, the tech giants are multinationals with more power than most governments. Only the EU, a combination of many governments, seems to be able to stand up to them. The US is largely successful, largely because money interests dominate both political parties and allow them to cajole blocks of voters.
There’s something insidious and inhuman about how big tech now dominates our world. Facebook’s CEO seems to think he’s above the law, Apple’s CEO is only a few steps behind, and let’s not talk much about Amazon’s whose hands are everywhere. Google controls the information you see. And there are many other tech giants on the list—I’ve only named the so-called American companies. Other huge companies, most of them Chinese, are out to control your lives, using info obtained from spyware you willingly buy (TikTok is but one example).
I’m no Luddite. I worked on the high tech frontier most of my career. Tech produces good things—medical imaging advances, more efficient farming techniques and disease-resistant crops, and so forth. But I understand where it’s going, and I don’t like it generally speaking because It will grow and grow and destroy everything that makes us human. It’s already doing so. If there’s a zombie apocalypse, it will be of our own choosing. We are already destroying rational and logical thought. Kornbluth’s classic sci-fi novella “The Marching Morons” is more likely to occur from tech destroying our minds than any genetic selectivity towards stupidity. Artificial Intelligence will be all that’s left, the world taken over not by machines as in the Terminator series, but by our giving the machines all the power.
But enough of generalities—let’s have some specifics. How does all this affect readers and writers?
Online social media like Facebook and Twitter are already havens for liars, haters, and bigots…and Facebook’s CEO condones this as “free speech.” You say, “Just ignore it.” I say, “I can’t.” Friends of “friends” spew out the vitriol; followers of “followers” do the same—so I get blasted too!
Amazon is always the very large rogue elephant in the room. It and its toady service Goodreads allows trolls to make zero-content reviews that skew the rankings at the best, and spew vitriol against books at the best, all excused by parroting Zuckerberg’s free-speech dogma. They serve neither readers nor writers, but Amazon/Goodreads just calls them “negative reviews,” not hate diatribes.
Authors, search for yourselves on Google. If you don’t see pirating sites come up in that search offering your books for free, lucky you! Google doesn’t give a rat’s ass that this happens. For all I know, the pirating sites pay Google to have it happen!
And they all give preference to Big Five authors and their books over self- and small press published books. And they all give authors false hope by selling ads, thus sapping and wasting author resources. They make a lot of money selling those ads that do very little to promote a book.
There’s very little that’s democratic about online retailers now in this supposed democratization of the publishing process—the retailers are autocrats who think they can control our lives and run the world better than any government. It’s astounding how much power over out lives that they’ve accumulated in 25-30 years, and they’re grabbing more with every year that passes. In particular, they tell you what to read and watch…and we follow along like lambs to the slaughter.
Because they’re all about making money, some say they’re apolitical. They’re not. They’re fascist capitalists, ones not following the Chinese model becoming more like that Chinese model all the time. They wield immense power because of their size.
So it’s time to split them up. They’re bloated carnivorous giants like 21st century T-rexes. It’s time to hit them with an asteroid or two and return the world to sanity, one where we’re not in danger of being swallowed up in the maws of the tech giants.
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Comments are always welcome!
Son of Thunder. Art detective Esther Brookstone, now retired from Scotland Yard, becomes obsessed with finding St. John the Divine’s tomb using directions left by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. Esther’s search, the disciple’s missionary travels, and Botticelli’s trip to the Middle East make for three travel stories that all come together in one surprising climax. Esther’s paramour, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, has problems with arms dealers, but he multitasks by trying to keep Esther focused and out of danger. The reader can also learn how their romance progresses, as well as travel back in time to discover a bit about Esther’s past with MI6 during the Cold War. Available in print and ebook versions at Amazon and the publisher, Penmore Press, as well as in ebook versions at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.). Or visit your favorite local bookstore (if they don’t have it, ask for it).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
