Big Tech is Like…
I don’t think I’ll ever actually write Sex and Drugs and Guns and Code, but if I do, I’ll frame it as, “Big tech is like…” and then spend two or three pages on each of the following:
- …a Drug Cartel
- …a Company Town
- …the Medieval Church
- …a Hollywood Studio
- …a Fast Food Franchise
- …a Patent Medicine Company
- …a Protection Racket
- …a Supermarket Chain
- …a Department Store
- …a Credit Card Network
- …a Credit Bureau
- …a Private Military Contractor
- …a Nation-State (Without the Obligations)
- …the Sharecropping System
- …the Yellow Press
- …the Penny Press
- …the NCAA
- …the Radio Payola System
- …Planned Obsolescence
- …the Putting-Out System
- …a Long Firm Fraud
- …the Enclosure Movement
- …the Stasi
- …Standard Oil
- …the Chemical Industry
- …the Auto Industry
- …the East India Company
- …a Drug Company