The fragility of big tech dominance
What’s fascinating to me is that we don’t need these platforms. They don’t provide us with a good or service that makes our lives any better. When you say that to someone inevitably they are going to give you all the ways they rationalize their usage of them. I use it to connect with people and stay up to date on their lives. I get my news from there. Whatever is the thing they’ve convinced themselves they need it for. But it’s all trash.
We don’t need social media to connect. Everyone has a smart phones in their pockets, with a camera, video chat, and messaging. If there’s someone you want to connect with you can do it. Anyone can search for news. Going to a platform feels so obsolete. No one needs to be fed their news, and no one needs to be fed connection. In fact we’d all be better off if we weren’t.
Everyone (with the exception of influencers) could delete their social media accounts tomorrow and nothing in their life would change other than having more time and bandwidth for the things they actually enjoy. And the influence amassed by these companies would evaporate over night.
It’s such a fabricated reliance that we have on them that I wonder if it’s something they consider, or do they just believe that it’ll never happen. No one will leave their platform. But deleting your social media account is not like deleting your bank account and saying you’re no longer going to participate in the banking system. Deleting your social media account is not like giving up driving, and deciding to walk everywhere. It’s not like deciding to grow your own food and raise your own animals. Social media brings nothing to our lives that if we didn’t have it would fundamentally change how we live. The reliance on social media is such an illusion.
It’s a fabrication, and we could end it with a few simple clicks. Delete. Sure you want to delete? Yes. Enter. Done.
I think the same argument can be made about Amazon. Their business is providing access to cheap shit quickly. Hardly innovative or necessary. Their a vendor of other people’s things. A delivery company on steroids. Not a good or service that we actually need, when a quick search on the internet will do the same thing. Find a place to buy the stuff you need. Typically directly from the business. So why the obsession with Amazon?
We don’t need to buy everything from one company. We don’t need everything delivered same day, at 3 am, or the next day. It’s an illusion that plays to the same human behavior as social media. The desire for instant gratification.
They aren’t filling a void in the system. If Amazon disappeared tomorrow, no one’s life changes.
It’s just such a fascinating dynamic to me that the most powerful companies in this country holding on by a string. Their connection to their consumers relies on something intangible and non-physical, that could be severed with a few clicks. Trillion dollar companies brought to their knees because everyone decided they’d had enough.
And I’m not even suggesting that everyone should or needs to delete their social media and Amazon accounts. All I’m saying is it gives context to the power of a united people. It’s an easy way to understand the collective power that is in our hands. That without our accounts they wouldn’t have a thing, and it would all go away.
If we don’t like how they flood our feeds with things we didn’t ask for, then we could demand they change it by boycotting. A blackout day where everyone agrees not to go on. A month. Two months. As long as it took for them to change their business model. And all it would take to force that change is a few clicks. We don’t have to protest. We don’t have to march. We don’t even have to leave the house.
It’s wild to me. The people have the power in the palm of their hands. These platforms are more reliant on us than we are of them. I wonder if the big companies realize that. They really are not in control. It would just take a little cooperation amongst the people that we’d like change or we’ll shut the lights out.