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The argument that in the pre-internet area, "for a glimpse of time, these privileged kids experienced a marginalization that the web suddenly made addressable"

The argument that in the pre-internet area, "for a glimpse of time, these privileged kids experienced a marginalization that the web suddenly made addressable" falls extremely flat to me. I've never seen anyone - in the tech industry or not - claim that they felt marginalized as a kid because they weren't growing up in NYC or Boston. So the idea that all these ideas popped up and had a market just because of this "geographic marginalization" is a huge reach. Sometimes there is a demand for something new from a non-marginalized majority group, and that's extremely likely to be the case with new technology, because new tech is definitionally new to both the mainstream and the margins. The claim that as an industry matures, new growth will start from the edges is not very different from our common use of "disruption" - neither the existing players nor their current customers anticipate the new thing - but it's also not really related to being "data driven" or not. You can try to serve the mainstream/your existing customer base in a data driven way or in a non-data-driven way. You can similarly try to find new opportunities with or without being data driven. There's a point in there about how if you're looking for new opportunities you need to be sophisticated in how you use your data, since you need to look for new insights and things that maybe won't show up in means and medians, but it's buried here in hard-to-support asides trying to exaggerate the business or innovation impact of being marginalized.

cactus2093 5y ago
Completely agree. I actually do understand feeling like you're not part of the mainstream culture if you're not in a major city like NYC or LA. But that is not even close to the same thing as the problems of the marginalized communities the author wants to connect this to (who are either poor, have disabilities, have been targeted by racism, etc.) I also find this whole style of argument very dubious. The author clearly started from the conclusion first here - that it's important to consider the needs of marginalized groups - which they believe in for purely moral/ideological reasons. And then they're somewhat awkwardly and very transparently back-fitting a different rationale in front of it and arguing that actually this is what's best for your business. The argument is flimsy, and it's also entirely beside the point. If convincing counter-evidence were brought up that shows this entire argument is flawed, is the author going to reverse their stance and say "ok, I was wrong, let's just ignore marginalized groups because they aren't that important to the bottom line"? Of course not. I feel like this kind of back-fitting argument probably does more harm than good, and might just end up back firing later. Let's just be honest about what we're asking for here - we want companies to consider the needs of marginalized groups, for its own sake because it's the right thing to do.
- svieira 5y ago
  > Let's just be honest about what we're asking for here - we want companies to consider the needs of marginalized groups, for its own sake because it's the right thing to do. Precisely! "Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it." [1] [1] G. K. Chesterton, _Illustrated London News_, May 11, 1907

cactus2093 5y ago

Completely agree. I actually do understand feeling like you're not part of the mainstream culture if you're not in a major city like NYC or LA. But that is not even close to the same thing as the problems of the marginalized communities the author wants to connect this to (who are either poor, have disabilities, have been targeted by racism, etc.) I also find this whole style of argument very dubious. The author clearly started from the conclusion first here - that it's important to consider the needs of marginalized groups - which they believe in for purely moral/ideological reasons. And then they're somewhat awkwardly and very transparently back-fitting a different rationale in front of it and arguing that actually this is what's best for your business. The argument is flimsy, and it's also entirely beside the point. If convincing counter-evidence were brought up that shows this entire argument is flawed, is the author going to reverse their stance and say "ok, I was wrong, let's just ignore marginalized groups because they aren't that important to the bottom line"? Of course not. I feel like this kind of back-fitting argument probably does more harm than good, and might just end up back firing later. Let's just be honest about what we're asking for here - we want companies to consider the needs of marginalized groups, for its own sake because it's the right thing to do.

svieira 5y ago
> Let's just be honest about what we're asking for here - we want companies to consider the needs of marginalized groups, for its own sake because it's the right thing to do. Precisely! "Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it." [1] [1] G. K. Chesterton, _Illustrated London News_, May 11, 1907