The great disruptors are taking us to an unknown past

From Daniel Greenfield.

The new disrupters could only envision their kind of world, diverse, urban, and with a mostly useless population whose grievances and inability to contribute to the new world order would have to be met with welfare checks and patient lessons on the dangers of intolerance.

And, most of all, control.

The original computer revolution had been built on freedom, but the titanic internet platforms depended on control. The control was meant to be unseen. The user would be manipulated into thinking it was his idea to click on that link, watch that show, search for that keyword, and buy that product by a series of invisible constraints and prompts to maintain the illusion of control.

The illusion of control, the myth of user agency, was at the heart of the new internet of platforms. The end user had never had less control over his virtual environment, even as it assured him that he could do anything he wanted. Once the user rebelled against the algorithm, the illusion of freedom collapsed leaving a choice between obedience or loss of access.

 

http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2020/12/the-great-disruption.html