I wonder if there’s a structural driver for your observations. It was around 2017-2018 that the major platforms hit genuine market saturation—user growth flattening, core margins compressing as the easy gains were taken. This implies that extraction isn’t (primarily) corruption, it’s rational response to a changed business environment. Lock-in, rent-seeking, regulatory capture, are the moves of an industry that knows its best days of organic expansion are behind it.
This also reframes the AI turn. AI is the only credible answer to the growth narrative problem at the moment. If you’re a platform company with a saturated market and a P/E ratio priced for a growth company, you need a story. AI is that story.
Regardless, your right that this tells us something about the teams leading these companies.
I remember when Uber rides were so cheap that some people started taking Uber everywhere that they would’ve normally taken their car. I remember the economists and economics minded opinion writers insisting that the glorious dawn of the ridiculously cheap ride could not possibly make any money for anybody, and that all those showering, praise upon the new business model were going to look incredibly foolish. They have been, of course, proven right.
"I read the boos at graduation ceremonies as not just a rejection of these prophecies as false but also as a collective revelation of what the prophecies themselves stand for."
I like the term "prophecy" because I get the sense that have "seen this movie". "The 100", "The Lord of the Rings", "Eagle Eye", "Divergent", "The Hunger Games", "Harry Potter", etc are great explorations of the seductive nature of power, whether it be via tech or magic. They all contain at least an implied sales pitch of " 'we' need to be doing this (so YOU need to be doing this)", "master it or it will master you", and "this is going to be wonderful". The cluelessness of these CEOs who don't understand the fear is remarkable.
Given the staggering amount of money involved in AI adoption, do you see the boos translating to change? Everyone knows social media steals data, drives mental health issues, cultivates rage and division and a host of other negative things and yet it is still a dominant force online, with billions in revenue for said SM companies. I hope boos do equal change to the current 'burn the world' data centre build programme to allow people to have AI write their presentation or talk to their AI waifu g/f but i also doubt things will change.
I think the change has already started. It's difficult to see because is a decentralized movement, but it's happening. I can point out a few examples: there's the QuitGPT movement that already has 4 million people committed to the boycott of Open AI. We have signs that a 'quiet digital revolution' is taking place with young people deciding to completely leave social media. Even these boos at tech oligarchs are a sign that the resistance is already happening. I think this movement is only getting stronger, reaching progressively even more people.
Veliz’s presentation is great. I’d add that the idea of predictions as “speech acts” is what all beliefs are to some degree. As you stated earlier, the declarations are a form of loyalty test. They’re a way of asking “who are my people?” And “are you with me?” If AI has any democratizing capacity for knowledge by disentangling it from our tendency to follow personalities, then it would make sense that the tech moguls want to monopolize how people think of AI so they can maintain tribal allegiance. I can see eventually where people will fight over and judge the entirety of a person based on which AI they use, like people do now with where they get their news.
I wonder if there’s a structural driver for your observations. It was around 2017-2018 that the major platforms hit genuine market saturation—user growth flattening, core margins compressing as the easy gains were taken. This implies that extraction isn’t (primarily) corruption, it’s rational response to a changed business environment. Lock-in, rent-seeking, regulatory capture, are the moves of an industry that knows its best days of organic expansion are behind it.
This also reframes the AI turn. AI is the only credible answer to the growth narrative problem at the moment. If you’re a platform company with a saturated market and a P/E ratio priced for a growth company, you need a story. AI is that story.
Regardless, your right that this tells us something about the teams leading these companies.
I think this is absolutely right!
I remember when Uber rides were so cheap that some people started taking Uber everywhere that they would’ve normally taken their car. I remember the economists and economics minded opinion writers insisting that the glorious dawn of the ridiculously cheap ride could not possibly make any money for anybody, and that all those showering, praise upon the new business model were going to look incredibly foolish. They have been, of course, proven right.
"I read the boos at graduation ceremonies as not just a rejection of these prophecies as false but also as a collective revelation of what the prophecies themselves stand for."
I like the term "prophecy" because I get the sense that have "seen this movie". "The 100", "The Lord of the Rings", "Eagle Eye", "Divergent", "The Hunger Games", "Harry Potter", etc are great explorations of the seductive nature of power, whether it be via tech or magic. They all contain at least an implied sales pitch of " 'we' need to be doing this (so YOU need to be doing this)", "master it or it will master you", and "this is going to be wonderful". The cluelessness of these CEOs who don't understand the fear is remarkable.
Given the staggering amount of money involved in AI adoption, do you see the boos translating to change? Everyone knows social media steals data, drives mental health issues, cultivates rage and division and a host of other negative things and yet it is still a dominant force online, with billions in revenue for said SM companies. I hope boos do equal change to the current 'burn the world' data centre build programme to allow people to have AI write their presentation or talk to their AI waifu g/f but i also doubt things will change.
I think the change has already started. It's difficult to see because is a decentralized movement, but it's happening. I can point out a few examples: there's the QuitGPT movement that already has 4 million people committed to the boycott of Open AI. We have signs that a 'quiet digital revolution' is taking place with young people deciding to completely leave social media. Even these boos at tech oligarchs are a sign that the resistance is already happening. I think this movement is only getting stronger, reaching progressively even more people.
All power to the boos is my view, great to hear progress is being made
Veliz’s presentation is great. I’d add that the idea of predictions as “speech acts” is what all beliefs are to some degree. As you stated earlier, the declarations are a form of loyalty test. They’re a way of asking “who are my people?” And “are you with me?” If AI has any democratizing capacity for knowledge by disentangling it from our tendency to follow personalities, then it would make sense that the tech moguls want to monopolize how people think of AI so they can maintain tribal allegiance. I can see eventually where people will fight over and judge the entirety of a person based on which AI they use, like people do now with where they get their news.