“Silicon Valley has a perception problem. Steve Jobs once said, speaking about the irreverent culture he helped create, that ‘it’s better to be a pirate than join the navy.’ This ethos served the community well when its firms existed at ‘pirate scale.’ But now Silicon Valley’s most successful companies have become some of the largest in the world,” Conor Sen writes for Bloomberg. “This culture must accept that it has become the navy, with its remaining pirates facing a choice — enlist, or walk the plank.”
“Silicon Valley has a lot of self-interested reasons for preferring to maintain a facade that its culture is special, and that its industry is more innovative, virtuous and productive than every other industry,” Sen writes. “It serves as a great recruiting tool as the region competes for talent with other industries and areas. It allows insiders to maintain outsize control of their companies. And it is a way to prevent regulators from coming in and regulating Silicon Valley to the extent that it might otherwise seek to do.”
“But it’s time to drop the pretense that Silicon Valley deserves special treatment,” Sen writes. “Facebook and Google are content and advertising companies, digital evolutions of print and television companies that came before them. Amazon’s core e-commerce business is just a digital Wal-Mart. Apple’s iPhone product cycle, with its annual incremental improvements, has parallels to the personal computer industry in the 1990s or even the Detroit ‘Big Three’ automakers in the 1960s. They deserve the same scrutiny from regulatory and labor watchdogs that their old-economy peers get.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The regulation will come eventually, if the companies can’t manage to buy themselves out of most of it and/or get their favored candidates voted into office.
Google already is an abusive monopolist. Anyone who trusts Google’s search results as pure unfiltered data – or, for that matter, trusts Google for anything – is morbidly delusional. Don’t even get us started on that festering morass Facebook.
SEE ALSO:
Young people are leaving Facebook – August 22, 2017
How Google is secretly recording Android settlers, monitoring millions of conversations every day and storing the creepy audio files – August 22, 2017
Edward Snowden: No matter what, do not use Google’s new Allo messenger app – September 23, 2016
Apple’s iOS 11 will deliver even more privacy to users – June 8, 2017
Google to pay $5.5 million for sneaking around Apple’s privacy settings to collect user data – August 31, 2016
Apple takes a swing at privacy-tampling, personal data-guzzling rivals like Google – September 29, 2015
Apple reinvents the privacy policy – September 29, 2015
Apple: Hey Siri and Live Photos data stays only on your device to ensure privacy – September 12, 2015
Apple issues iPhone manifesto; blasts Android’s lack of updates, lack of privacy, rampant malware – August 10, 2015
Edward Snowden supports Apple’s stance on customer privacy – June 17, 2015
Mossberg: Apple’s latest product is privacy – June 12, 2015
Apple looks to be building an alternative to the Google-branded, hand-over-your-privacy ‘Internet Experience’ – June 11, 2015
Understanding Apple and privacy – June 8, 2015
Edward Snowden: Apple is a privacy pioneer – June 5, 2015
Edward Snowden’s privacy tips: ‘Get rid of Dropbox,” avoid Facebook and Google – October 13, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook ups privacy to new level, takes direct swipe at Google – September 18, 2014
Apple slams Google in Safari 7.1 release notes: ‘Adds DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn’t track users’ – September 18, 2014
A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy – September 18, 2014
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants – September 18, 2014
Google to pay $17 million to settle U.S. states’ Safari user tracking probe – November 20, 2013
Judge dismisses case against Google over Safari user tracking – October 11, 2013
UK Apple Safari users sue Google for secretly tracking Web browsing – January 28, 2013
Google pays $22.5 million to settle charges of bypassing Apple Safari privacy settings – August 9, 2012
US FTC votes to fine Google $22.5 million for bypassing Safari privacy settings; Settlement allows Google to admit no liability – July 31, 2012
Google’s D.C. lobbyists have outspent Apple nearly 10 to 1 so far this year – July 23, 2012
Google to pay $22.5 million to settle charges over bypassing privacy settings of millions of Apple users – July 10, 2012
Apple’s anti-user tracking policy has mobile advertisers scrambling – May 9, 2012
Google said to be negotiating amount of U.S. FTC fine over Apple Safari breach – May 4, 2012
Cookies and privacy, Google and Safari – February 25, 2012
Obama’s privacy plan puts pinch on Google – February 24, 2012
Obama administration outlines online privacy guidelines – February 23, 2012
Google sued by Apple Safari-user for bypassing browser privacy – February 21, 2012
Google responds to Microsoft over privacy issues, calls IE’s cookie policy ‘widely non-operational’ – February 21, 2012
Google’s tracking of Safari users could prompt FTC investigation – February 18, 2012
WSJ: Google tracked iPhone, iPad users, bypassing Apple’s Safari browser privacy settings; Microsoft denounces – February 17, 2012
Agreed completely with MDN’s take. Do not use any Google product. Also PROUD to have never had a Facebbok account. (In fairness though I can understand the need for businesses to have one. )
Likewise. Over the past five years Silicon Valley has become more or less indistinguishable from the rest of corporate America, it’s equally as insidious and in need of tuning up. I second all of the points: just don’t use Google’s products, and skip having a personal Facebook account (or any of the companies they own). Employ security measures online. Stop handing yourself over on a silver platter. If real regulation ever happens regarding data harvesting and privacy law, these companies’ income streams would collapse pretty fast.
Arrrgh…where’s me rum!
In short Silicon Valley isn’t doing things his way!
He doesn’t have a clue about had the things going on in Silicon Valley. Could point him to about 100 people and books that could easily smash his misconceptions.
Incoherent sentences, figures.