“We are amusing ourselves to death”

[…] consumers receive immensely popular, convenient services for free. Advertisers benefit from cheap, effective targeting of audiences. If users do not like Google’s offer then they can easily switch to other services.

They argue that data are better viewed as the product of labour, rather than the byproduct of leisure.

De laatste fase van de digitale economie zal niet fraai zijn: verslaafd aan rotzooi en verdwaald in de oneindige memes – de via het internet verspreide ideeën, beelden, verhaaltjes – van dubieuze herkomst, zullen wij, de overtollige online-bevolking, ten slotte aan ons lot worden overgelaten.

Gelukkig, voor sommigen, zullen we bij de techbedrijven dankzij AI de juiste beveiligingsdiensten kunnen kopen. De cognitieve elite heeft niets te vrezen, want die beperkt zich tot het digitale equivalent van boerenkool en quinoa en surft door de ambachtelijke, handgemaakte inhoud die voor niet-ingewijden verborgen blijft. Alle anderen zijn ertoe veroordeeld om zich vol te proppen met goedkope rommel-memes gegenereerd door machinaal leren, met als enig doel om ons over te halen het premium-pakket van ons favoriete platform te kopen en eindelijk gemoedsrust te krijgen. Geld besteed aan Facebook zal dan waarlijk welbesteed geld zijn.

[…] I pledge to go to the gym more in 2018, but every morning when I wake up, my partner presents me with a plate of donuts and urges me to stay in bed and eat them. My revealed preferences show that I’m more interested in eating donuts than in exercising. But it’s pretty perverse that my partner is working to give me what I really crave, ignoring what I’ve clearly stated I aspire to.

People share sensational or shocking news, while more reliable news tends not to go viral. When people choose to subscribe to reliable news sources, they’re asking to go to the gym. With these News Feed changes, Facebook threw out your gym shoes and subscribed you to a donut-delivery service.

Gobo presents you with posts from your friends, but also gives you a set of sliders that govern what news you see and what’s hidden from you. Want more serious news, less humor? Move a slider. Need to hear more female voices? Adjust the gender slider, or press the “mute all men” button for a much quieter internet. Gobo currently includes half a dozen ways to tune your news feed, with more to come. (It’s open-source software, so you can write your own filters, too.) Gobo is a provocation, not a product.

[…] developers to build real customizable aggregators, not toys like Gobo, which would let people control what they read on online platforms—helping them live up to their aspirations, not down to their preferences. 

Humans don’t maximize their utility. We have a multitude of factors that we consider. We are messy. We are conflicted. We are human.

Utility is trumped by any technologies ability to fit within the human framework. We need to take into account that we are complicated and nonsensical beings that don’t always maximize our utility. If that was the case, we would be strapping on our fanny packs (no hands!) and jumping on our Segway.

Glass, or any piece of technology, app, or network, is not used inside of a vacuum. It is used by an emotional human that is also generally cognizant and concerned about others around them. The very idea of being a member of society means that we are constantly conforming within the norms are acceptable behavior. So while Glass offered a tremendous amount of individual utility, it was not made to be used alone in one’s bedroom. It was designed to be used at school, work, bars, and sporting events.

These are all places where you are interacting with other people, lots of them. Other people who may view you as socially awkward or unwanted by wearing a piece of equipment over your eyes. The recording feature tapped into our Orwellian fear of surveillance and quickly branded the early adopters into the much maligned Glassholes.