13 ms·

Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

275 points by otoolep 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.
- adventured 9y ago
  In a word, regulation. Tech has been mostly hands-off politically, an oasis of limited targeted regulation, over the post WW2 era. While the rest of the US economy has practically been regulated to death. Bloomberg had an opinion piece a few days ago, noting how several of the tech giants (eg Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Cisco) had higher profit margins than the S&P 500 average and argued that it was due to lack of regulation (something akin to saying we must regulate tech to make everything fair with the rest of the over-regulated economy). Such arguments in the main-stream media are increasingly becoming a daily occurrence.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    I wish they took it as an example of reducing regulation in the others, instead of adding regulation to these ones..
    - pm90 9y ago
      There is a reason regulations exist. While I don't think regulations should be so onerous as to destroy businesses, they are definitely a good way to ensure that our economy is working for the benefit of everyone, including the environment.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        There are many reasons for regulations to exist, most of them are pretty terrible. There is a typical reaction that if people are bound by some limitation, and some other, then we should create artificial limitations on the latter. Regulatory capture, increasing costs, increasing tax revenue, all things that are not aligned with the general public. Just by the opportunists on the other side of the table.
  - justinpaulson 9y ago
    "regulated to death"? Hyperbole much? You make it sound as if regulations have no goal other than to limit the growth of industries. As if the wellbeing of the people and the planet have nothing to do with it. The main reason other industries are regulated more than tech is because other industries usually have a lot more physical repercussions to their actions (affecting health, finances, etc. in a very tangible way). Most tech companies offer free products in exchange for data or advertising space, and the dissemination of personal data is not viewed at the same level as destroying someone's finances or health.
  - pm90 9y ago
    This is not a good diagnosis of why Tech companies have such high profit margins IMO. Software is incredibly scalable: once you build a software, you sell it to millions of people, or build a platform that's used by millions of people. Tech is building off the shift of the economy to more automation and less dependence on labor. There's also the thing where entire new markets are being created and Tech companies are the only participants (e.g. rideshare, search etc.). In most instances reasonable regulations allow for more innovation in the economy by making it easier for smaller companies to compete with big businesses, and to make sure that businesses don't hurt the societies and economies they operate in. While there are good instances of over regulations, much like the myth of the welfare queen, I think its much overblown, and not an accurate diagnosis for the problems businesses are facing today in America.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  We knew from the day one that over-reliance on cloud giants like Facebook or Google in holding all your life worth of data is a bad idea. We told everybody that it is a bad idea. Everybody promptly ignored our warnings. Some laughed. I guess they don't laugh anymore, do they? Now, who was right? Obligatory https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
  - jstanley 9y ago
    Unfortunately, I think they still mostly laugh.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      They've not even started to feel the pain. They mostly read about it in media. That would be the next step.
  - numbsafari 9y ago
    To be more accurate, the last two panes of that comic would would be set as a FB feed with the first character posting the FB is evil and the second character replying “told you so”.
  - and0 9y ago
    Man I dunno about giving weird Rorschach monologues in general, but if you're really compelled to.. at least don't punctuate it with an XKCD.
- dclowd9901 9y ago
  This is my experience as well. While my family are enjoying their Amazon Dots and "Hey Siri" and everything else, I'm constantly reminding them of how evil these companies are, and how they're constantly consuming and eating information, while Uncle Sam syphons every drip of internet off the pipeline. Convenience, in my mind, has never been worth the price of losing anonymity.
  - paulryanrogers 9y ago
    How do you maintain your anonymity?
    - dclowd9901 9y ago
      Not tweeting (much), not instagramming (much), not posting on Facebook (much), etc. I don't see anonymity as a binary; more of a spectrum (think something that stretches between a hermit and a celebrity). Obviously as a human existing into some manner of time with family and friends and coworkers, I'm _known_ by those who could/should, but I don't need Amazon parsing conversations in my kitchen.
      - darethas 9y ago
        Right, but do you hang out with people around you that tweet, Instagram, and post on Facebook? Have you ever had dinner with friends and they have an Echo/Dot/Home/"Smart" TV? They can infer where you are based on being around others that use these services.
        bogomipz 9y ago
        I understand about being tagged in a photo and a social media site inferring where I am but can you explain how this happens with a friend's "Echo/Dot/Home/"Smart" TV"?
        gm-conspiracy 9y ago
        Ultrasonic? GPS? geolocation using WAN IP of those devices and your device's GPS coordinates. You are in the same vicinity.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  You also grew up reading Snow Crash wink Some things just don't make sense to me. Why are the default settings for something like Facebook public? Why not friends by default?
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    I am inordinately proud of the fact that I discovered neal stephenson all by myself -- and I read Cryptonomicon at one of those formative ages where it bakes itself into your head at a pretty deep level. Judging by their business decisions, I have come to believe that a bunch of other would-be Secret Admirers work at some but not all tech companies, and this does inform my choice of services. I bet you $5 there were Tombstone jokes at Apple during the san bernadino fiasco. edit: and people like Moxie are doing their very best John Cantrell impersonations and I am extremely grateful for this.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > Some things just don't make sense to me. Why are the default settings for something like Facebook public? Why not friends by default? They are not, AFAIK. I mean, Facebook keeps nagging me to make my posts private every other week, even though I explicitly want to post publicly. Facebook was a much nicer place back when they actually were public-by-default. It felt more social. Now it's just a crossover between Twitter and a rolodex.
  - wolco 9y ago
    Why are people using there real names. Facebook requires a valid looking name not your real name.
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      They require verification if enough people report you. The people most harmed by "real name" policies are most likely to be harassed with reports.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Unfortunately we're being ignored and it will take something much worse than the Equifax disaster to make the message land. Highly frustrating.
- gm-conspiracy 9y ago
  Were you a BBS guy? That is how I learned to never give your real identity in an electronic world.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Depends on the BBS. On the one I was on for a long time, many people used their real identities and even got together IRL.
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      This was true on freenode for me. I’ve never told anyone exactly who I am, but I’ve got some actual friends there I would feel comfortable meeting in real life.
dragontamer 9y ago
Okay, there are a lot of ills in Silicon Valley / Tech world, but this article... frankly speaking... is a load of anti-corporate rage. I've read about halfway through this article, and it seems like the biggest "sin" of Silicon Valley, according to this article, is their acceptance of advertisements (Google / Facebook Mobile) and possibly Amazon's dominance of the online marketplace? Facebook's "sin" of allowing Russian-linked advertisements which spread propaganda to the US election is probably the worst thing mentioned. But in the great scheme of things (with Facebook cooperating with proper authorities), that's a moot issue since Zuckerberg seems to be "on our side" there. There are far better arguments elsewhere. This article is... poorly written. In my personal opinion anyway. ----------- With that said: the important thing about this article is the general shift of the mainstream media and public sentiment. It seems like newspapers are finding it "in vogue" to hate on Silicon Valley, even if they barely understand the subject.
- anonmoose123 9y ago
  Compare that to all the problems the NYT is having retaining funding. Now look at what articles NYT has been running about YouTube lately. Spotting similarities?
- forgottenpass 9y ago
  Facebook's "sin" of allowing Russian-linked advertisements which spread propaganda to the US election is probably the worst thing mentioned. I don't really care about Ruskie ads, but if it makes society start to notice that these platforms can be used against us, then they might start seeing the more insidious natures of the platforms too. But in the great scheme of things (with Facebook cooperating with proper authorities) that's a moot issue since Zuckerberg seems to be "on our side" there. Isn't the very idea that it matters where Zuckerberg's allegiances lie terrifying? Additionally, the notion that "proper authorities" are a response to propaganda would be comical if it wasn't treated so seriously.
- s_kilk 9y ago
  No, the "sin" is in Valley programmers broad refusal to acknowledge the social impacts of their work, their refusal to believe that technology, which is inseparable from the context it is used in, could possibly have any negative impact on that context, and the people who use it. Even in 2017 we still have engineers crowing about how technology is value neutral, it's a-political, and how any attempt to claim otherwise is putting artificial restraint on something they see as pure and detached from society. It's an entirely bullshit mode of thinking which needs to be challenged in the here-and-now if we're to have any hope of a bright future, rather than the immiserated neo-feudal hellscape we're currently heading towards.
wil421 9y ago
If you aren’t paying for the service then the company is certainly not your friend. Even when you paying I would still be cautious. In the beginning, FB was a great way to connect and the community seemed more friendly and united. Now it’s used as a political divider and a cesspool of mis-information. NextDoor has been a positive experience for me but I can see it going they way of FB. Depends on your neighbors I guess.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  > Now it’s used as a political divider and a cesspool of mis-information. As a longtime user of the internet, from the 90s days of Usenet, to Gamefaqs LUEsers, to Something Awful, to Slashdot, to 4chan and to Reddit... public discussion has always been a political divider and a cesspool of misinformation. I'm not old enough to comment about the "early web" or the days before the "Eternal September". But my understanding about those days were that the early internet discussion boards were also politically divisive and full of misinformation, at least until the userbase understood the nature of online. Its the nature of social networks. IE: Freshmen in colleges would come in as toxic newbies to the Internet in September. With AOL increasing the number of internet users on 1993, the toxicity of the internet forever grew and it never ended since then. Or so the legend of "Eternal September" goes anyway. Facebook just brings that environment mainstream.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    > As a longtime user of the internet, from the 90s days of Usenet A big difference from those days is that most of the major troll communities actively shunned people for what we'd call doxxing today. It's quite striking how as folks became more and more interested in the outside world, it became more and more important to attack people.
    - dragontamer 9y ago
      I think the turning point that "normalized Doxxing" was the anti-Scientology brigade a few years back. There are other bits and pieces here and there. "Forum Invasions" in the early 00s were frowned upon, but Stephen Colbert's call to edit the Wikipedia "Elephant" page basically normalized that practice somewhat. Furthermore, while Forum invasions were considered poor-taste, they are extremely effective in Reddit (at least a few years ago) to "Vote Brigade" certain topics to the top page. These actions are frowned upon, but the blood is in the water and people are now accustomed to their efficacy. Like sharks, the trolls smell the blood and enjoy their newfound powers. Furthermore, when these online attacks are looked upon with favor in the mainstream (see South Park, which glorified the anti-Scientology fervor, and of course Colbert), it only led to more widespread acceptance of these tactics.
KirinDave 9y ago
Let's be selfish for a moment. Mandating decentralization of these services is probably a net good not only for society (and us, because we'll be the ones employed to do it) by way of distributing more wealth, opportunity and responsibilities to more people. But it'll also be good from a technical standpoint. We're in desperate need of a wake-up call about the centralized and often legacy, government mandated insecurity of our information infrastructure. Only by defining a new minimum degree of competence and security for a more distributed infrastructure can we pass through this keyhole without making continuous fraud and theft the new normal.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I agree, but I'm also concerned that decentralization could increase the surface area exposed to attack.
  - m3rc 9y ago
    How?
    - _seemethere 9y ago
      By decentralizing you have to expose more things for interaction with different services leaving you more entry-points for a potential attack.
      - KirinDave 9y ago
        Sure. I submit pretending every interface is external is expensive and painful but perhaps an accurate reflection of reality.
      - uoaei 9y ago
        Bake it into the protocol that each connection is regularly confirming the other party's active and passive security measures, and that if one of these tests fails the connection is severed.
- 9y ago
misterHN 9y ago
The New York times is imploding. They published an attack piece on white people: "White Nationalism is Destroying the West" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-nationalism-threat-islam-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-nati... This article features Zuckerberg---a Jew---as if he were a representative of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is not some Jewish project. Jews don't own Silicon Valley. There is no reason to bring up Yom Kippur---a Jewish holiday---in the context of a story on Silicon Valley. Religious holidays are not on-topic for an update on the state of Silicon Valley. The New York Times decided to print absolute nonsense on the Harvey Weinstein story for two straight days: first there was a story from Lena Dunham about blaming all men for the acts of one man, then there was a story from Gwyneth Paltrow about blaming a "way of treating women" for the acts of one man. The New York Times printed absolute nonsense from these two women. It isn't news, it's psychological attacks. It isn't news, it's psychological attacks.
baron816 9y ago
I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue because they were making money off of it. The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  The press swings memes in a pendulum. They hype, they hate, they hype, they hate. Right now, it seems their getting on finger wagging band wagon. When in 'hype' mode - the littlest, most innocuous thing is 'game changing'. When in 'hate mode' - the littlest, most incidental act is 'an example of the entire failure of the Valley'. Hype: Google Glasses 'will change how we interact as people' Hate: 'An Uber rider refused to accept seeing/helper dog = Silicon Valley is Evil'
  - dasil003 9y ago
    The only problem with your theory is that The Media is not a monolithic entity.
    - alexasmyths 9y ago
      It's definitely not 'my' theory. Major outlets are deeply intertwined and take cues from one another as to 'what the story of the hour' is. All of the 'grievances' purported by the press against SV today, could have been made 10 years ago - but they weren't. Why not? Andrew Keen at TechCrunch, or maybe the cynical guys at TheRegister were the only ones brave enough to say anything a while back. (Granted, Keen might be a cynic at heart :) ).
- losvedir 9y ago
  Even if they knew, I'm still not totally clear on what's wrong with running those ads. It seems everyone has such a low opinion of everyone else these days. I really wish the outcome of learning that Russians bought ads on facebook was a cultural antibody to not believe ads, not a call to ever more closely regulate what stuff people should see.
anonmoose123 9y ago
Now that the culture of coastal journalism has become completely insular, it's time to turn on the REAL heretics- those who share almost all of our beliefs. That's all I see here. Silicon Valley is like New York and San Fran, except while sharing most of our social values they disagree with out economics, so they're going to be the next against the wall. Random example: I wanted to catch up on issues of Lucky Peach magazine, which until it went under combined cool new ideas about cooking (David Chang, Momofuku) with a hint of the old 'zine culture in the form of ridiculously cool photography and unusual graphic design. It's neat stuff. Except it's written almost entirely by and for residents of NYC and San Fran. Every single issue will highlight someone trawling ramen places in the Bronx, or diners by the Bay, or what cool new places are downtown on XXrd and XXst. Even though for instance they all worship Benton's Smoked Bacon, from Tennessee, which one assumes exists somewhere out in the wasteland where you find backwards regressive inbreds. You can see this regarding YouTube as well. The real "monsters" on YouTube that people are most worried about fighting right now are people who believe in social programs, who want to help the poor and believe all people deserve human rights, but they're people who disagree about the best way to achieve those aims. So the New York Times is regularly writing hit pieces about how YouTubers don't serve the national interest, where you should really spend your money is on coastal print media which you can trust to always have correct opinions. Note that I didn't vote in the last election, and do not support any major American political party.
jankotek 9y ago
Just watch how Silicon Valley tv series evolved. It started with noble idea. In 4th series they recorded all video calls on their network, stored medical records on botnet of hacked phones and fridges...
- smithmayowa 9y ago
  This is so true, as it details the mentality "the end justify the means" that permeates and is normalized in silicon valley.
blahman2 9y ago
More like "Media is not your friend" "Neither Mr. Weizenbaum nor Mr. McCarthy mentioned, though it was hard to miss, that this ascendant generation were nearly all white men with a strong preference for people just like themselves." Ok,this, and a few other tropes have become so prevalent in media today that it is starting to be annoying. I genuinely believe the people using these tropes (race, gender, inequality, evil tech) are not interested in remedying any societal ills, but in getting more attention and views on their articles. Even the NYT reads like BuzzFeed now
cmsonger 9y ago
"For profit organizations are not your friend" is usually true. It's not restricted to tech companies or silicon valley.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  I'd be more general and say "organizations of more than 10 or so people are not capable of being friendly" Sure your interests may align for a possibly indefinite time period and deliver similar results to friendship but the larger a group is the more it acts like a sociopath.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Agreed. I don't know why limiting the skepticism to for profit organizations makes sense.
  - smt88 9y ago
    Some orgs, but not a majority, are larger than 10 and still my friend. Here are some: - ProPublica - my local farm co-op - REI Just trying to say it's not a law. I do agree with your point though.
- bradyo 9y ago
  I agree, but I think companies who build a product where the end user isn't the customer unsurprisingly tend to be worse.
  - tqi 9y ago
    "Tend to be worse" is open for interpretation, but I think energy companies, telco companies, defense companies, finance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and many others would beg to differ.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    I dunno. I personally love having all the world's information at my fingertips for free. I recognize that doing so means that they have another set of constituents they need to please whose interests are not necessarily aligned with mine, but I'll willingly take that bargain.
qudat 9y ago
Who thought tech companies were ever a friend? I don't see a problem with massive corporations so long as they get that way by offering the best good or service at the lowest price (natural monopolies). If they achieve their status by partaking in political activity or otherwise using their power in a coercive manner (coercive monopolies) then that's where I draw the line. There lies the biggest problem with powerful institutions, how can we create a political system that renders political clout benign? If governments had no power then growing monoliths couldn't extract that power to begin with, right? It seems at the core of any coercive monopoly there sits government force. This is where I think the article got it wrong, it's not tech that is the problem, but the solution. We should be looking for ways to render government force obsolete through technological advancements in order to completely eradicate coercive monopolies (and by proxy, monolithic institutions) once and for all.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Google played a good trick with the whole "Don't be evil" mantra, for as long as it lasted. Most people used to think Google could do no wrong in the past. I think their image has noticeably gone downhill since they stopped even pretending to abide by that mantra. As Schmidt realized, too, the mantra allowed Google employees to have a reason for pushing back when they thought something doesn't feel right. So I suppose the Google execs eventually started "de-training" them from thinking about it. > "Now, when I showed up, I thought this was the stupidest rule ever, because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something." In the end, though, he believes it has worked, by giving employees a way to point out things they find unethical. https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-once-thought-dont-be-evil-was-stupidest-rule-ever https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-once...
- Toboe 9y ago
  >I don't see a problem with massive corporations so long as they get that way by offering the best good or service at the lowest price (natural monopolies) What about massive corporations that grew naturally to the point of having no competition and then start using their power coercively?
deleted 9y ago
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PhisherPrice 9y ago
The only purpose of a public company is to maximize profits for the shareholders. That means they don't care about your best interests at all.
- trafnar 9y ago
  A common way to maximize profits is to concern yourself with the interests of your customers.
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    The counterpoint being that often "you" are not the customer. The company buying ADs is. Also many companies are not driven by long term thinking. They are focused on maximizing profits on a quarterly basis which may not be in your interests, even if you ARE the customer. But I'm still with you for the most part. I don't like when people say a business is "evil". I think of it like a wild animal, like a Bear. The Bear might be friendly with you, but it is not your friend, it might eat you if it gets hungry. It has its own reasoning. Even if it does eat you, it wasn't because its EVIL. It just doesn't have empathy for humans the way we do. It's a force of nature, and most of the time it just wants to see what's in your trash can and then go away.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  False. That's a myth promulgated by Milton Friedman. Jack Welch of GE now calls it the stupidest idea ever. See also Lynn Stout: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
cool_look 9y ago
A Journalist telling us not to trust people. That is quite rich
- nerevarthelame 9y ago
  An anonymous Internet commenter telling us not to trust journalists. That is quite rich.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Not realy I have always been told that beware of talking to hacks
jrs95 9y ago
"Silicon Valley is Not Your Friend...but we, at The New York Times, totally are."
- walshemj 9y ago
  Yes don't forget that traditional newspapers bitterly resent their drop in power and status and have google or fb hacked into celebs email recently ?
- mwnz 9y ago
  +1 to this. Like the news media haven't spent the last century abusing their influence on society.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  > ...but we, at The New York Times, totally are. That's a false dichotomy, but yeah, the NYTimes REALLY IS more like "my friend" than Facebook, Google, or other massive organizations that make money from using "me" as their product while pretending to serve my needs.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  What a total strawman comment that is. The free press is necessary for a functioning democracy, Silicon Valley is not.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity? There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does.
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      >"Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity?" You realize that the widely accepted idea of journalism being an essential part of a functioning democracy is not something that today's "media companies" made up right? See "The Fourth Estate": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate >"There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does" Are you joking? The SV companies are the Goliath in terms of direct power. Did you miss this whole story of a major election, micro-targeting and dark ads? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/12/russias-facebook-ads-show-how-internet-microtargeting-can-be-weaponized/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/1...
haberman 9y ago
> We need greater regulation, even if it impedes the introduction of new services. If we can’t stop their proposals — if we can’t say that driverless cars may not be a worthy goal, to give just one example — then are we in control of our society? Governments are in full control of whether driverless cars happen. They were fully illegal until some states started making them legal in certain circumstances (like for testing). And they are well-regulated; for example here are California's regulations: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto So yes, the people are in control of society. If driverless cars happen over the author's objection, all it means is that he's failed to convince his fellow countrymen/women that they are the great menace he believes them to be.
vasilipupkin 9y ago
this may be the dumbest most fud filled article I have ever read. I mean it's just a bunch of words that mean what exactly? what exactly does the author think those companies are doing that is evil ? I can't figure it out. Driverless cars are not a worthy goal? don't buy one once it's for sale.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  sure, you can downvote, but those downvoting can you explain to me in a nutshell what is the specific point made by this article ?
  - pheldagryph 9y ago
    The articles makes points throughout, but one I found interesting was in the first paragraph. Zuckerberg acknowledging professional failings, suggesting FB does not consider itself to be perfect. For example, a recent Facebook privacy failure (also, a separate failure for FB PR department): https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 Some find it worrisome that these systems don't work quite like users expect, and believe there is risk we're not accounting for.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
I wonder how "Wall Street is not your friend" would play in the NY Times. I mean I get it, greed and flexible morality result in exploitation of the masses, but it is not unique to tech. During the dot.com boom it was pretty clear that there were people here in the Bay Area whose only goal was to sell some investors on an idea, pump it up, take it public on a story, pocket some big profits and then blow town. My friends and I called it the "Invasion of the MBAs" but it really was the invasion of people who want to make easy money and they don't care who they hurt doing it. After things blew up and the only people getting investment were people trying to actually build products it calmed way down. This 'type' of person seems to seek out other avenues when there is real work to be done.
- deleted 9y ago
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- joering2 9y ago
  Its quite different with Wall-street tho. In Bay Area with your freshly mint MBA, over the weekend you could put together power-point presentation, pitch it on Monday as a "big shot with incredible idea and amazing connections" and get funded by Friday. Meanwhile to be selling the same BS on the stock market you actually had to had a stock, who got on the NYSE/NASDAQ board first, and that means there has been actually a physical company with employees and everything in place.
- moomin 9y ago
  I think the reason that article doesn't run in the NYT is because it's accepted wisdom. A much more likely article is "You may hate Wall Street, but you'd miss it if it was gone."
- jrs95 9y ago
  Essentially every major institution is like this, the NY Times and the rest of the media included. We should probably be less fixated on which particular groups of corporations are 'good' or 'bad' and deal with the underlying problems.
- pm90 9y ago
  It would be a total non-issue if they did come out saying that openly though. Probably it started off with Google's "do no evil" motto; I can't think of any tech companies that promoted themselves as a force for social good rather than a pure business. Except maybe Apple under Steve Jobs.
cromwellian 9y ago
The reporter asks a rhetorical question of whether self driving cars should be stopped. Did he ask the car companies whether they should have been stopped selling a machine that helps kill tens of thousands a year and pollute the global environment? I mean, lets get a damn perspective here: traditional non-silicon valley companies continue to make and sell things which poison and kill people and because of that, there is a greater concern about them. But he doesn't like SV because it's companies created anarchic platforms that allow unsavory people to buy and publish propaganda? Seems somewhat hypocritical for a writer of the NYT to decry freedom to publish on platforms. And if we had a completely decentralized internet, none of these issues would go away. Rather, we'd be talking about how no one can stop the Russians using Bitcoin to pay for publish and propaganda on whatever decentralized platform has the most eyeballs.
- deleted 9y ago
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- cromwellian 9y ago
  I responded to someone who deleted their comment, it was a valuable and good comment, so I don't know why he deleted it, but here's my response: I think it's the wrong question he's asking. We're trying to restrain technology and productivity increases from reducing the need for human labor, rather than asking if we can create a society where human labor is not needed to survive or thrive in the first place. Is it better to have millions toiling away on assembling lines to pay for food so their kids don't starve, or it is better to have millions of robots toiling away on assembly lines while a generation of people are freed up to pursue other things? We should be looking at the long term trends in demographics and labor force participation and asking not "How can we gum up technological progress so people continue to do shit work", but "How can we prepare our culture and political system to transition to a world where work may be a choice, an optional pursuit, but people can live without it, or find meaning in other ways?" And that doesn't just mean concepts like Universal Basic Income, it also means, how can people society deal with newly found idle time, without self destructing or losing motivation. These are huge challenges, but they aren't going to go away from questioning Silicon Valley. What needs to be questioned is the entire model of the protestant work ethic style industrial society, and how a transition to a post-industrial, maybe post-capitalist society, could occur.
jasonrhaas 9y ago
I mean, Tech companies are not your friends just like GE, Boeing, Procter & Gamble are not your friends. The four horsemen of tech (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple), are VERY large companies, and they should be treated that way. I don't think they are _evil_ as this article sort of implies, but they are not above the laws or regulations that other big companies face. We just need to admit that in the end they are companies, who primary motivation is profit (like all companies), and we cannot implicitly trust them just because they make cool products. We need to have a healthy skepticism about what they are doing and what their goals are. I'm not saying anyone should avoid using their products, but just be aware that nothing really comes for free.
free_everybody 9y ago
This article begs the question: Is it possible to maintain a cultural sense of ethics in any highly profitable corporation? Are there any examples in history of notably ethical corporations that changed the world?
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  How big and how much change? There's Ben and Jerry's and Newman's Own, some people might say Costco.
  - free_everybody 9y ago
    Ok, that's interesting. I wonder what is the common thread among those three. Could it be benevolent founders who don't hand the reins over to investment partners?
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Yes on the first two, until Ben and Jerry retired and sold to some multiconglomerate, and since Paul Newman died, some question the direction of the company. Costco is public, but they currently get away with there being a relatively small spread between the CEO and the lowest paid fulltime employee (less than 10x?). Bob's Red Mill might be considered somewhat in the same vein, the owner/CEO recently retired and gave the company to the employees. Tangentially the only non billionaire owned major sports team in the USA is the Green Bay Packers which has shares that are owned by locals.
      - uoaei 9y ago
        Just want to point out that Bob's Red Mill is an example of literal socialism, i.e., the workers own the means of production. And it's working. http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/...
r00fus 9y ago
Skepticism is a good thing, including while consuming this anti-valley diatribe. I fear what SV is becoming, but this article says nothing of previous history of other such revolutionary shifts like with industrial revolution, petroleum economy. Maybe SV has a feel-good image because in comparison to other mature consumer industries (think TV/Cable or Automobiles) it's comparatively less full of bullshit.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > this article says nothing of previous history of other such revolutionary shifts like with industrial revolution, petroleum economy Each of those shifts resulted in their industries being massively regulated, in respect of their effects on labor and the environment, respectively. The article calls, if somewhat indirectly, for the similar regulation of tech.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    That regulation didn't happen for years or decades after the colossal impacts those revolutions had on society/world. Not bringing up historical context only weakens the article's argument, IMHO.
    - uoaei 9y ago
      You've made its argument yourself. It's high time to regulate this industry before said colossal impacts.
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EddieSpeaks 9y ago
I know this has been said before, but we need blockchain based alternatives for everything. Starting sign Steemit which works like Reddit (and pays its users) and openmarket.com which is like amazon we can slowly supplant every service. About time we did.
pascalxus 9y ago
I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years. I think it has less to do with what SV is doing precisely: it's more about the threat of automation and the consolidation of power in the hands of a few companies. Pieces like this, so enfused with bitterness show a fundamental lack of understanding of how capitalism works, or at least a willful ignorance: "Growth becomes the overriding motivation". Of course is the overriding motiviation - this is how capitalism works. It reflects poorly on the New York times. I expected better more balanced journalism from them. However, I do agree with their argument about breaking up giants. There is some merit to this argument and much could be gained from greater competition.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  SV is now officially the current elite to hate. Recent news stories were all but reasonable, and it's going to get worse. People need a scapegoat so that their anger can be diverted to it, controlled and exploited for money. This scapegoat is now the tech industry.
- gm-conspiracy 9y ago
  The media is probably upset about the excessive amount of javascript code the advertising networks force upon them when viewing their articles. This was interesting (Carlos Slim has a 17% stake in the paper): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_New_York_Times_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_Ne...
- Toboe 9y ago
  >"Growth becomes the overriding motivation". Of course is the overriding motiviation - this is how capitalism works. Maybe in their view the economy/capitalism isn't supposed to be the only factor/overriding everything else?
- mncharity 9y ago
  > I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years. Is there any evidence of an organized campaign? Is the LA Times leading the way, for instance? During SOPA, it seemed clear that at least some Hollywood leadership actually believed a narrative of "unethical black-hat Tech corrupting Congresspeople to oppose our pure white-hat legislation". Perhaps driven by a group-think "everyone I know agrees this is excellent and necessary, so opposition from tech and congress can only be rooted in greed and corruption respectively". A real CEO-ish quote from the period was something like "congressmen not staying bought". Perhaps meaning something vaguely like "we donate a lot to get good people elected, and then they turned around and took Tech bribes to stab us in the back, oppose our good legislation". If this is indeed a media industry point of view, it would seem unsurprising if they then used media to raise awareness that Tech is a problem requiring attention.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
Silicon Valley's sin is that they replaced morals with profits, like most major companies, and became drunk with power, prestige, and moving the levers of society. Much like the media.
deleted 9y ago
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Nokinside 9y ago
All the companies mentioned are in business where network effects dominate. They absolutely can't stop growing, because there are no second places. The problem here is that the playing field dictates the how the game can be played. This is new marketplace and new dynamic without established rules or balance. Governments slap sanctions to Google, Facebook and Amazon from time to time, but they don't do them consistently or solve the real underlying issues.
stuffedBelly 9y ago
Some opinions on this article are naive but I do agree regulation is an important step forward. Unless there is regulation like the Fiduciary Rule in place for tech companies, they can say "we are making the world a better place" however and whenever they like but they are not obliged to actually do it. These companies will be your friend if there are economic incentive to do so, or it would incur legal costs if they weren't to comply to their role as a fiduciary to their clients.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
Are you? If NYT could switch places with any of the Silicon Valley top companies, it would without skipping a heart beat. Just ask Washington Post. Silicon Valley has it's problems and advantages. Newspaper and print media has it's problems and advantages. Thanks NYT. I promise to keep my guards up as much as I can. Happy?
AzzieElbab 9y ago
Oh noes! Who is then? I have no friends left
mythrwy 9y ago
Hypothetical question. Would you rather live in a world constructed by Google or one constructed by the New York Times? My personal theory is that these articles keep popping up in the hopes regulators will "do something" then old newspapers will become the primary sources of information again. But as much as there are hazards of big centralized tech companies, the information we have now is so much more complete than the little slices of bias and propaganda that the newspapers brought us.
Dowwie 9y ago
The pot calls the kettle black. You could just as easily argue that for-profit journalism media outlets like the NY Times are not your friend either, and haven't been for much longer than today's tech companies. Sorry to use this argumentation tactic..

275 points by otoolep 9y ago

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

adventured 9y ago
In a word, regulation. Tech has been mostly hands-off politically, an oasis of limited targeted regulation, over the post WW2 era. While the rest of the US economy has practically been regulated to death. Bloomberg had an opinion piece a few days ago, noting how several of the tech giants (eg Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Cisco) had higher profit margins than the S&P 500 average and argued that it was due to lack of regulation (something akin to saying we must regulate tech to make everything fair with the rest of the over-regulated economy). Such arguments in the main-stream media are increasingly becoming a daily occurrence.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I wish they took it as an example of reducing regulation in the others, instead of adding regulation to these ones..
  - pm90 9y ago
    There is a reason regulations exist. While I don't think regulations should be so onerous as to destroy businesses, they are definitely a good way to ensure that our economy is working for the benefit of everyone, including the environment.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      There are many reasons for regulations to exist, most of them are pretty terrible. There is a typical reaction that if people are bound by some limitation, and some other, then we should create artificial limitations on the latter. Regulatory capture, increasing costs, increasing tax revenue, all things that are not aligned with the general public. Just by the opportunists on the other side of the table.
- justinpaulson 9y ago
  "regulated to death"? Hyperbole much? You make it sound as if regulations have no goal other than to limit the growth of industries. As if the wellbeing of the people and the planet have nothing to do with it. The main reason other industries are regulated more than tech is because other industries usually have a lot more physical repercussions to their actions (affecting health, finances, etc. in a very tangible way). Most tech companies offer free products in exchange for data or advertising space, and the dissemination of personal data is not viewed at the same level as destroying someone's finances or health.
- pm90 9y ago
  This is not a good diagnosis of why Tech companies have such high profit margins IMO. Software is incredibly scalable: once you build a software, you sell it to millions of people, or build a platform that's used by millions of people. Tech is building off the shift of the economy to more automation and less dependence on labor. There's also the thing where entire new markets are being created and Tech companies are the only participants (e.g. rideshare, search etc.). In most instances reasonable regulations allow for more innovation in the economy by making it easier for smaller companies to compete with big businesses, and to make sure that businesses don't hurt the societies and economies they operate in. While there are good instances of over regulations, much like the myth of the welfare queen, I think its much overblown, and not an accurate diagnosis for the problems businesses are facing today in America.
thriftwy 9y ago
We knew from the day one that over-reliance on cloud giants like Facebook or Google in holding all your life worth of data is a bad idea. We told everybody that it is a bad idea. Everybody promptly ignored our warnings. Some laughed. I guess they don't laugh anymore, do they? Now, who was right? Obligatory https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
- jstanley 9y ago
  Unfortunately, I think they still mostly laugh.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    They've not even started to feel the pain. They mostly read about it in media. That would be the next step.
- numbsafari 9y ago
  To be more accurate, the last two panes of that comic would would be set as a FB feed with the first character posting the FB is evil and the second character replying “told you so”.
- and0 9y ago
  Man I dunno about giving weird Rorschach monologues in general, but if you're really compelled to.. at least don't punctuate it with an XKCD.
dclowd9901 9y ago
This is my experience as well. While my family are enjoying their Amazon Dots and "Hey Siri" and everything else, I'm constantly reminding them of how evil these companies are, and how they're constantly consuming and eating information, while Uncle Sam syphons every drip of internet off the pipeline. Convenience, in my mind, has never been worth the price of losing anonymity.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  How do you maintain your anonymity?
  - dclowd9901 9y ago
    Not tweeting (much), not instagramming (much), not posting on Facebook (much), etc. I don't see anonymity as a binary; more of a spectrum (think something that stretches between a hermit and a celebrity). Obviously as a human existing into some manner of time with family and friends and coworkers, I'm _known_ by those who could/should, but I don't need Amazon parsing conversations in my kitchen.
    - darethas 9y ago
      Right, but do you hang out with people around you that tweet, Instagram, and post on Facebook? Have you ever had dinner with friends and they have an Echo/Dot/Home/"Smart" TV? They can infer where you are based on being around others that use these services.
      - bogomipz 9y ago
        I understand about being tagged in a photo and a social media site inferring where I am but can you explain how this happens with a friend's "Echo/Dot/Home/"Smart" TV"?
        gm-conspiracy 9y ago
        Ultrasonic? GPS? geolocation using WAN IP of those devices and your device's GPS coordinates. You are in the same vicinity.
Fnoord 9y ago
You also grew up reading Snow Crash wink Some things just don't make sense to me. Why are the default settings for something like Facebook public? Why not friends by default?
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  I am inordinately proud of the fact that I discovered neal stephenson all by myself -- and I read Cryptonomicon at one of those formative ages where it bakes itself into your head at a pretty deep level. Judging by their business decisions, I have come to believe that a bunch of other would-be Secret Admirers work at some but not all tech companies, and this does inform my choice of services. I bet you $5 there were Tombstone jokes at Apple during the san bernadino fiasco. edit: and people like Moxie are doing their very best John Cantrell impersonations and I am extremely grateful for this.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Some things just don't make sense to me. Why are the default settings for something like Facebook public? Why not friends by default? They are not, AFAIK. I mean, Facebook keeps nagging me to make my posts private every other week, even though I explicitly want to post publicly. Facebook was a much nicer place back when they actually were public-by-default. It felt more social. Now it's just a crossover between Twitter and a rolodex.
- wolco 9y ago
  Why are people using there real names. Facebook requires a valid looking name not your real name.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    They require verification if enough people report you. The people most harmed by "real name" policies are most likely to be harassed with reports.
jacquesm 9y ago
Unfortunately we're being ignored and it will take something much worse than the Equifax disaster to make the message land. Highly frustrating.
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
Were you a BBS guy? That is how I learned to never give your real identity in an electronic world.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Depends on the BBS. On the one I was on for a long time, many people used their real identities and even got together IRL.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    This was true on freenode for me. I’ve never told anyone exactly who I am, but I’ve got some actual friends there I would feel comfortable meeting in real life.

dragontamer 9y ago

Okay, there are a lot of ills in Silicon Valley / Tech world, but this article... frankly speaking... is a load of anti-corporate rage. I've read about halfway through this article, and it seems like the biggest "sin" of Silicon Valley, according to this article, is their acceptance of advertisements (Google / Facebook Mobile) and possibly Amazon's dominance of the online marketplace? Facebook's "sin" of allowing Russian-linked advertisements which spread propaganda to the US election is probably the worst thing mentioned. But in the great scheme of things (with Facebook cooperating with proper authorities), that's a moot issue since Zuckerberg seems to be "on our side" there. There are far better arguments elsewhere. This article is... poorly written. In my personal opinion anyway. ----------- With that said: the important thing about this article is the general shift of the mainstream media and public sentiment. It seems like newspapers are finding it "in vogue" to hate on Silicon Valley, even if they barely understand the subject.

anonmoose123 9y ago
Compare that to all the problems the NYT is having retaining funding. Now look at what articles NYT has been running about YouTube lately. Spotting similarities?
forgottenpass 9y ago
Facebook's "sin" of allowing Russian-linked advertisements which spread propaganda to the US election is probably the worst thing mentioned. I don't really care about Ruskie ads, but if it makes society start to notice that these platforms can be used against us, then they might start seeing the more insidious natures of the platforms too. But in the great scheme of things (with Facebook cooperating with proper authorities) that's a moot issue since Zuckerberg seems to be "on our side" there. Isn't the very idea that it matters where Zuckerberg's allegiances lie terrifying? Additionally, the notion that "proper authorities" are a response to propaganda would be comical if it wasn't treated so seriously.
s_kilk 9y ago
No, the "sin" is in Valley programmers broad refusal to acknowledge the social impacts of their work, their refusal to believe that technology, which is inseparable from the context it is used in, could possibly have any negative impact on that context, and the people who use it. Even in 2017 we still have engineers crowing about how technology is value neutral, it's a-political, and how any attempt to claim otherwise is putting artificial restraint on something they see as pure and detached from society. It's an entirely bullshit mode of thinking which needs to be challenged in the here-and-now if we're to have any hope of a bright future, rather than the immiserated neo-feudal hellscape we're currently heading towards.

wil421 9y ago

If you aren’t paying for the service then the company is certainly not your friend. Even when you paying I would still be cautious. In the beginning, FB was a great way to connect and the community seemed more friendly and united. Now it’s used as a political divider and a cesspool of mis-information. NextDoor has been a positive experience for me but I can see it going they way of FB. Depends on your neighbors I guess.

dragontamer 9y ago
> Now it’s used as a political divider and a cesspool of mis-information. As a longtime user of the internet, from the 90s days of Usenet, to Gamefaqs LUEsers, to Something Awful, to Slashdot, to 4chan and to Reddit... public discussion has always been a political divider and a cesspool of misinformation. I'm not old enough to comment about the "early web" or the days before the "Eternal September". But my understanding about those days were that the early internet discussion boards were also politically divisive and full of misinformation, at least until the userbase understood the nature of online. Its the nature of social networks. IE: Freshmen in colleges would come in as toxic newbies to the Internet in September. With AOL increasing the number of internet users on 1993, the toxicity of the internet forever grew and it never ended since then. Or so the legend of "Eternal September" goes anyway. Facebook just brings that environment mainstream.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  > As a longtime user of the internet, from the 90s days of Usenet A big difference from those days is that most of the major troll communities actively shunned people for what we'd call doxxing today. It's quite striking how as folks became more and more interested in the outside world, it became more and more important to attack people.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    I think the turning point that "normalized Doxxing" was the anti-Scientology brigade a few years back. There are other bits and pieces here and there. "Forum Invasions" in the early 00s were frowned upon, but Stephen Colbert's call to edit the Wikipedia "Elephant" page basically normalized that practice somewhat. Furthermore, while Forum invasions were considered poor-taste, they are extremely effective in Reddit (at least a few years ago) to "Vote Brigade" certain topics to the top page. These actions are frowned upon, but the blood is in the water and people are now accustomed to their efficacy. Like sharks, the trolls smell the blood and enjoy their newfound powers. Furthermore, when these online attacks are looked upon with favor in the mainstream (see South Park, which glorified the anti-Scientology fervor, and of course Colbert), it only led to more widespread acceptance of these tactics.

KirinDave 9y ago

Let's be selfish for a moment. Mandating decentralization of these services is probably a net good not only for society (and us, because we'll be the ones employed to do it) by way of distributing more wealth, opportunity and responsibilities to more people. But it'll also be good from a technical standpoint. We're in desperate need of a wake-up call about the centralized and often legacy, government mandated insecurity of our information infrastructure. Only by defining a new minimum degree of competence and security for a more distributed infrastructure can we pass through this keyhole without making continuous fraud and theft the new normal.

humanrebar 9y ago
I agree, but I'm also concerned that decentralization could increase the surface area exposed to attack.
- m3rc 9y ago
  How?
  - _seemethere 9y ago
    By decentralizing you have to expose more things for interaction with different services leaving you more entry-points for a potential attack.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      Sure. I submit pretending every interface is external is expensive and painful but perhaps an accurate reflection of reality.
    - uoaei 9y ago
      Bake it into the protocol that each connection is regularly confirming the other party's active and passive security measures, and that if one of these tests fails the connection is severed.
9y ago

misterHN 9y ago

The New York times is imploding. They published an attack piece on white people: "White Nationalism is Destroying the West" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-nationalism-threat-islam-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-nati... This article features Zuckerberg---a Jew---as if he were a representative of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is not some Jewish project. Jews don't own Silicon Valley. There is no reason to bring up Yom Kippur---a Jewish holiday---in the context of a story on Silicon Valley. Religious holidays are not on-topic for an update on the state of Silicon Valley. The New York Times decided to print absolute nonsense on the Harvey Weinstein story for two straight days: first there was a story from Lena Dunham about blaming all men for the acts of one man, then there was a story from Gwyneth Paltrow about blaming a "way of treating women" for the acts of one man. The New York Times printed absolute nonsense from these two women. It isn't news, it's psychological attacks. It isn't news, it's psychological attacks.

baron816 9y ago

I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue because they were making money off of it. The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.

alexasmyths 9y ago
The press swings memes in a pendulum. They hype, they hate, they hype, they hate. Right now, it seems their getting on finger wagging band wagon. When in 'hype' mode - the littlest, most innocuous thing is 'game changing'. When in 'hate mode' - the littlest, most incidental act is 'an example of the entire failure of the Valley'. Hype: Google Glasses 'will change how we interact as people' Hate: 'An Uber rider refused to accept seeing/helper dog = Silicon Valley is Evil'
- dasil003 9y ago
  The only problem with your theory is that The Media is not a monolithic entity.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    It's definitely not 'my' theory. Major outlets are deeply intertwined and take cues from one another as to 'what the story of the hour' is. All of the 'grievances' purported by the press against SV today, could have been made 10 years ago - but they weren't. Why not? Andrew Keen at TechCrunch, or maybe the cynical guys at TheRegister were the only ones brave enough to say anything a while back. (Granted, Keen might be a cynic at heart :) ).
losvedir 9y ago
Even if they knew, I'm still not totally clear on what's wrong with running those ads. It seems everyone has such a low opinion of everyone else these days. I really wish the outcome of learning that Russians bought ads on facebook was a cultural antibody to not believe ads, not a call to ever more closely regulate what stuff people should see.

anonmoose123 9y ago

Now that the culture of coastal journalism has become completely insular, it's time to turn on the REAL heretics- those who share almost all of our beliefs. That's all I see here. Silicon Valley is like New York and San Fran, except while sharing most of our social values they disagree with out economics, so they're going to be the next against the wall. Random example: I wanted to catch up on issues of Lucky Peach magazine, which until it went under combined cool new ideas about cooking (David Chang, Momofuku) with a hint of the old 'zine culture in the form of ridiculously cool photography and unusual graphic design. It's neat stuff. Except it's written almost entirely by and for residents of NYC and San Fran. Every single issue will highlight someone trawling ramen places in the Bronx, or diners by the Bay, or what cool new places are downtown on XXrd and XXst. Even though for instance they all worship Benton's Smoked Bacon, from Tennessee, which one assumes exists somewhere out in the wasteland where you find backwards regressive inbreds. You can see this regarding YouTube as well. The real "monsters" on YouTube that people are most worried about fighting right now are people who believe in social programs, who want to help the poor and believe all people deserve human rights, but they're people who disagree about the best way to achieve those aims. So the New York Times is regularly writing hit pieces about how YouTubers don't serve the national interest, where you should really spend your money is on coastal print media which you can trust to always have correct opinions. Note that I didn't vote in the last election, and do not support any major American political party.

jankotek 9y ago

Just watch how Silicon Valley tv series evolved. It started with noble idea. In 4th series they recorded all video calls on their network, stored medical records on botnet of hacked phones and fridges...

smithmayowa 9y ago
This is so true, as it details the mentality "the end justify the means" that permeates and is normalized in silicon valley.

blahman2 9y ago

More like "Media is not your friend" "Neither Mr. Weizenbaum nor Mr. McCarthy mentioned, though it was hard to miss, that this ascendant generation were nearly all white men with a strong preference for people just like themselves." Ok,this, and a few other tropes have become so prevalent in media today that it is starting to be annoying. I genuinely believe the people using these tropes (race, gender, inequality, evil tech) are not interested in remedying any societal ills, but in getting more attention and views on their articles. Even the NYT reads like BuzzFeed now

cmsonger 9y ago

"For profit organizations are not your friend" is usually true. It's not restricted to tech companies or silicon valley.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
I'd be more general and say "organizations of more than 10 or so people are not capable of being friendly" Sure your interests may align for a possibly indefinite time period and deliver similar results to friendship but the larger a group is the more it acts like a sociopath.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Agreed. I don't know why limiting the skepticism to for profit organizations makes sense.
- smt88 9y ago
  Some orgs, but not a majority, are larger than 10 and still my friend. Here are some: - ProPublica - my local farm co-op - REI Just trying to say it's not a law. I do agree with your point though.
bradyo 9y ago
I agree, but I think companies who build a product where the end user isn't the customer unsurprisingly tend to be worse.
- tqi 9y ago
  "Tend to be worse" is open for interpretation, but I think energy companies, telco companies, defense companies, finance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and many others would beg to differ.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  I dunno. I personally love having all the world's information at my fingertips for free. I recognize that doing so means that they have another set of constituents they need to please whose interests are not necessarily aligned with mine, but I'll willingly take that bargain.

qudat 9y ago

Who thought tech companies were ever a friend? I don't see a problem with massive corporations so long as they get that way by offering the best good or service at the lowest price (natural monopolies). If they achieve their status by partaking in political activity or otherwise using their power in a coercive manner (coercive monopolies) then that's where I draw the line. There lies the biggest problem with powerful institutions, how can we create a political system that renders political clout benign? If governments had no power then growing monoliths couldn't extract that power to begin with, right? It seems at the core of any coercive monopoly there sits government force. This is where I think the article got it wrong, it's not tech that is the problem, but the solution. We should be looking for ways to render government force obsolete through technological advancements in order to completely eradicate coercive monopolies (and by proxy, monolithic institutions) once and for all.

mtgx 9y ago
Google played a good trick with the whole "Don't be evil" mantra, for as long as it lasted. Most people used to think Google could do no wrong in the past. I think their image has noticeably gone downhill since they stopped even pretending to abide by that mantra. As Schmidt realized, too, the mantra allowed Google employees to have a reason for pushing back when they thought something doesn't feel right. So I suppose the Google execs eventually started "de-training" them from thinking about it. > "Now, when I showed up, I thought this was the stupidest rule ever, because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something." In the end, though, he believes it has worked, by giving employees a way to point out things they find unethical. https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-once-thought-dont-be-evil-was-stupidest-rule-ever https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326424/eric-schmidt-once...
Toboe 9y ago
>I don't see a problem with massive corporations so long as they get that way by offering the best good or service at the lowest price (natural monopolies) What about massive corporations that grew naturally to the point of having no competition and then start using their power coercively?

deleted 9y ago

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PhisherPrice 9y ago

The only purpose of a public company is to maximize profits for the shareholders. That means they don't care about your best interests at all.

trafnar 9y ago
A common way to maximize profits is to concern yourself with the interests of your customers.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  The counterpoint being that often "you" are not the customer. The company buying ADs is. Also many companies are not driven by long term thinking. They are focused on maximizing profits on a quarterly basis which may not be in your interests, even if you ARE the customer. But I'm still with you for the most part. I don't like when people say a business is "evil". I think of it like a wild animal, like a Bear. The Bear might be friendly with you, but it is not your friend, it might eat you if it gets hungry. It has its own reasoning. Even if it does eat you, it wasn't because its EVIL. It just doesn't have empathy for humans the way we do. It's a force of nature, and most of the time it just wants to see what's in your trash can and then go away.
dredmorbius 9y ago
False. That's a myth promulgated by Milton Friedman. Jack Welch of GE now calls it the stupidest idea ever. See also Lynn Stout: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...

cool_look 9y ago

A Journalist telling us not to trust people. That is quite rich

nerevarthelame 9y ago
An anonymous Internet commenter telling us not to trust journalists. That is quite rich.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Not realy I have always been told that beware of talking to hacks

jrs95 9y ago

"Silicon Valley is Not Your Friend...but we, at The New York Times, totally are."

walshemj 9y ago
Yes don't forget that traditional newspapers bitterly resent their drop in power and status and have google or fb hacked into celebs email recently ?
mwnz 9y ago
+1 to this. Like the news media haven't spent the last century abusing their influence on society.
crispyambulance 9y ago
> ...but we, at The New York Times, totally are. That's a false dichotomy, but yeah, the NYTimes REALLY IS more like "my friend" than Facebook, Google, or other massive organizations that make money from using "me" as their product while pretending to serve my needs.
bogomipz 9y ago
What a total strawman comment that is. The free press is necessary for a functioning democracy, Silicon Valley is not.
- jrs95 9y ago
  Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity? There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"Isn’t any media company’s ability to hide behind “we’re the free press and we’re necessary for democracy” even more potent than SV’s faux dedication to the interests of humanity?" You realize that the widely accepted idea of journalism being an essential part of a functioning democracy is not something that today's "media companies" made up right? See "The Fourth Estate": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate >"There’s a lot wrong with what SV companies do, but they don’t have the same direct power to define what is and isn’t “true” like the media does" Are you joking? The SV companies are the Goliath in terms of direct power. Did you miss this whole story of a major election, micro-targeting and dark ads? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/10/12/russias-facebook-ads-show-how-internet-microtargeting-can-be-weaponized/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/1...

haberman 9y ago

> We need greater regulation, even if it impedes the introduction of new services. If we can’t stop their proposals — if we can’t say that driverless cars may not be a worthy goal, to give just one example — then are we in control of our society? Governments are in full control of whether driverless cars happen. They were fully illegal until some states started making them legal in certain circumstances (like for testing). And they are well-regulated; for example here are California's regulations: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto So yes, the people are in control of society. If driverless cars happen over the author's objection, all it means is that he's failed to convince his fellow countrymen/women that they are the great menace he believes them to be.

vasilipupkin 9y ago

this may be the dumbest most fud filled article I have ever read. I mean it's just a bunch of words that mean what exactly? what exactly does the author think those companies are doing that is evil ? I can't figure it out. Driverless cars are not a worthy goal? don't buy one once it's for sale.

vasilipupkin 9y ago
sure, you can downvote, but those downvoting can you explain to me in a nutshell what is the specific point made by this article ?
- pheldagryph 9y ago
  The articles makes points throughout, but one I found interesting was in the first paragraph. Zuckerberg acknowledging professional failings, suggesting FB does not consider itself to be perfect. For example, a recent Facebook privacy failure (also, a separate failure for FB PR department): https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-outs-sex-workers-1818861596 Some find it worrisome that these systems don't work quite like users expect, and believe there is risk we're not accounting for.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I wonder how "Wall Street is not your friend" would play in the NY Times. I mean I get it, greed and flexible morality result in exploitation of the masses, but it is not unique to tech. During the dot.com boom it was pretty clear that there were people here in the Bay Area whose only goal was to sell some investors on an idea, pump it up, take it public on a story, pocket some big profits and then blow town. My friends and I called it the "Invasion of the MBAs" but it really was the invasion of people who want to make easy money and they don't care who they hurt doing it. After things blew up and the only people getting investment were people trying to actually build products it calmed way down. This 'type' of person seems to seek out other avenues when there is real work to be done.

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joering2 9y ago
Its quite different with Wall-street tho. In Bay Area with your freshly mint MBA, over the weekend you could put together power-point presentation, pitch it on Monday as a "big shot with incredible idea and amazing connections" and get funded by Friday. Meanwhile to be selling the same BS on the stock market you actually had to had a stock, who got on the NYSE/NASDAQ board first, and that means there has been actually a physical company with employees and everything in place.
moomin 9y ago
I think the reason that article doesn't run in the NYT is because it's accepted wisdom. A much more likely article is "You may hate Wall Street, but you'd miss it if it was gone."
jrs95 9y ago
Essentially every major institution is like this, the NY Times and the rest of the media included. We should probably be less fixated on which particular groups of corporations are 'good' or 'bad' and deal with the underlying problems.
pm90 9y ago
It would be a total non-issue if they did come out saying that openly though. Probably it started off with Google's "do no evil" motto; I can't think of any tech companies that promoted themselves as a force for social good rather than a pure business. Except maybe Apple under Steve Jobs.

cromwellian 9y ago

The reporter asks a rhetorical question of whether self driving cars should be stopped. Did he ask the car companies whether they should have been stopped selling a machine that helps kill tens of thousands a year and pollute the global environment? I mean, lets get a damn perspective here: traditional non-silicon valley companies continue to make and sell things which poison and kill people and because of that, there is a greater concern about them. But he doesn't like SV because it's companies created anarchic platforms that allow unsavory people to buy and publish propaganda? Seems somewhat hypocritical for a writer of the NYT to decry freedom to publish on platforms. And if we had a completely decentralized internet, none of these issues would go away. Rather, we'd be talking about how no one can stop the Russians using Bitcoin to pay for publish and propaganda on whatever decentralized platform has the most eyeballs.

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cromwellian 9y ago
I responded to someone who deleted their comment, it was a valuable and good comment, so I don't know why he deleted it, but here's my response: I think it's the wrong question he's asking. We're trying to restrain technology and productivity increases from reducing the need for human labor, rather than asking if we can create a society where human labor is not needed to survive or thrive in the first place. Is it better to have millions toiling away on assembling lines to pay for food so their kids don't starve, or it is better to have millions of robots toiling away on assembly lines while a generation of people are freed up to pursue other things? We should be looking at the long term trends in demographics and labor force participation and asking not "How can we gum up technological progress so people continue to do shit work", but "How can we prepare our culture and political system to transition to a world where work may be a choice, an optional pursuit, but people can live without it, or find meaning in other ways?" And that doesn't just mean concepts like Universal Basic Income, it also means, how can people society deal with newly found idle time, without self destructing or losing motivation. These are huge challenges, but they aren't going to go away from questioning Silicon Valley. What needs to be questioned is the entire model of the protestant work ethic style industrial society, and how a transition to a post-industrial, maybe post-capitalist society, could occur.

jasonrhaas 9y ago

I mean, Tech companies are not your friends just like GE, Boeing, Procter & Gamble are not your friends. The four horsemen of tech (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple), are VERY large companies, and they should be treated that way. I don't think they are _evil_ as this article sort of implies, but they are not above the laws or regulations that other big companies face. We just need to admit that in the end they are companies, who primary motivation is profit (like all companies), and we cannot implicitly trust them just because they make cool products. We need to have a healthy skepticism about what they are doing and what their goals are. I'm not saying anyone should avoid using their products, but just be aware that nothing really comes for free.

free_everybody 9y ago

This article begs the question: Is it possible to maintain a cultural sense of ethics in any highly profitable corporation? Are there any examples in history of notably ethical corporations that changed the world?

stevenwoo 9y ago
How big and how much change? There's Ben and Jerry's and Newman's Own, some people might say Costco.
- free_everybody 9y ago
  Ok, that's interesting. I wonder what is the common thread among those three. Could it be benevolent founders who don't hand the reins over to investment partners?
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Yes on the first two, until Ben and Jerry retired and sold to some multiconglomerate, and since Paul Newman died, some question the direction of the company. Costco is public, but they currently get away with there being a relatively small spread between the CEO and the lowest paid fulltime employee (less than 10x?). Bob's Red Mill might be considered somewhat in the same vein, the owner/CEO recently retired and gave the company to the employees. Tangentially the only non billionaire owned major sports team in the USA is the Green Bay Packers which has shares that are owned by locals.
    - uoaei 9y ago
      Just want to point out that Bob's Red Mill is an example of literal socialism, i.e., the workers own the means of production. And it's working. http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/...

r00fus 9y ago

Skepticism is a good thing, including while consuming this anti-valley diatribe. I fear what SV is becoming, but this article says nothing of previous history of other such revolutionary shifts like with industrial revolution, petroleum economy. Maybe SV has a feel-good image because in comparison to other mature consumer industries (think TV/Cable or Automobiles) it's comparatively less full of bullshit.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> this article says nothing of previous history of other such revolutionary shifts like with industrial revolution, petroleum economy Each of those shifts resulted in their industries being massively regulated, in respect of their effects on labor and the environment, respectively. The article calls, if somewhat indirectly, for the similar regulation of tech.
- r00fus 9y ago
  That regulation didn't happen for years or decades after the colossal impacts those revolutions had on society/world. Not bringing up historical context only weakens the article's argument, IMHO.
  - uoaei 9y ago
    You've made its argument yourself. It's high time to regulate this industry before said colossal impacts.

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EddieSpeaks 9y ago

I know this has been said before, but we need blockchain based alternatives for everything. Starting sign Steemit which works like Reddit (and pays its users) and openmarket.com which is like amazon we can slowly supplant every service. About time we did.

pascalxus 9y ago

I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years. I think it has less to do with what SV is doing precisely: it's more about the threat of automation and the consolidation of power in the hands of a few companies. Pieces like this, so enfused with bitterness show a fundamental lack of understanding of how capitalism works, or at least a willful ignorance: "Growth becomes the overriding motivation". Of course is the overriding motiviation - this is how capitalism works. It reflects poorly on the New York times. I expected better more balanced journalism from them. However, I do agree with their argument about breaking up giants. There is some merit to this argument and much could be gained from greater competition.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
SV is now officially the current elite to hate. Recent news stories were all but reasonable, and it's going to get worse. People need a scapegoat so that their anger can be diverted to it, controlled and exploited for money. This scapegoat is now the tech industry.
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
The media is probably upset about the excessive amount of javascript code the advertising networks force upon them when viewing their articles. This was interesting (Carlos Slim has a 17% stake in the paper): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_New_York_Times_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_The_Ne...
Toboe 9y ago
>"Growth becomes the overriding motivation". Of course is the overriding motiviation - this is how capitalism works. Maybe in their view the economy/capitalism isn't supposed to be the only factor/overriding everything else?
mncharity 9y ago
> I think 2017 is the year we have a turning point in the media's opinion of Silicon valley. I don't remember seeing this much SV bashing in the last 10 years. Is there any evidence of an organized campaign? Is the LA Times leading the way, for instance? During SOPA, it seemed clear that at least some Hollywood leadership actually believed a narrative of "unethical black-hat Tech corrupting Congresspeople to oppose our pure white-hat legislation". Perhaps driven by a group-think "everyone I know agrees this is excellent and necessary, so opposition from tech and congress can only be rooted in greed and corruption respectively". A real CEO-ish quote from the period was something like "congressmen not staying bought". Perhaps meaning something vaguely like "we donate a lot to get good people elected, and then they turned around and took Tech bribes to stab us in the back, oppose our good legislation". If this is indeed a media industry point of view, it would seem unsurprising if they then used media to raise awareness that Tech is a problem requiring attention.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

Silicon Valley's sin is that they replaced morals with profits, like most major companies, and became drunk with power, prestige, and moving the levers of society. Much like the media.

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Nokinside 9y ago

All the companies mentioned are in business where network effects dominate. They absolutely can't stop growing, because there are no second places. The problem here is that the playing field dictates the how the game can be played. This is new marketplace and new dynamic without established rules or balance. Governments slap sanctions to Google, Facebook and Amazon from time to time, but they don't do them consistently or solve the real underlying issues.

stuffedBelly 9y ago

Some opinions on this article are naive but I do agree regulation is an important step forward. Unless there is regulation like the Fiduciary Rule in place for tech companies, they can say "we are making the world a better place" however and whenever they like but they are not obliged to actually do it. These companies will be your friend if there are economic incentive to do so, or it would incur legal costs if they weren't to comply to their role as a fiduciary to their clients.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago

Are you? If NYT could switch places with any of the Silicon Valley top companies, it would without skipping a heart beat. Just ask Washington Post. Silicon Valley has it's problems and advantages. Newspaper and print media has it's problems and advantages. Thanks NYT. I promise to keep my guards up as much as I can. Happy?

AzzieElbab 9y ago

Oh noes! Who is then? I have no friends left

mythrwy 9y ago

Hypothetical question. Would you rather live in a world constructed by Google or one constructed by the New York Times? My personal theory is that these articles keep popping up in the hopes regulators will "do something" then old newspapers will become the primary sources of information again. But as much as there are hazards of big centralized tech companies, the information we have now is so much more complete than the little slices of bias and propaganda that the newspapers brought us.

Dowwie 9y ago

The pot calls the kettle black. You could just as easily argue that for-profit journalism media outlets like the NY Times are not your friend either, and haven't been for much longer than today's tech companies. Sorry to use this argumentation tactic..