Interesting piece as always, but I don’t see the dychotomy here:
Blockquote
Gates is practicing a form of tech exceptionalism here: implicit in his view is that tech is intrinsically corrupting, and that the companies behave badly because it is in their nature to do so, not because we let them get away with it.
Companies do behave badly because it’s in their nature, they are designed to be amoral entities; nevertheless, we definitely let them get away with it. There are a number of things I (and many others) would never do, even if I knew I could get away with them.
I agree that breaking up big companies is a stalling technique. So why think in terms of “breaking them up?” Why not simply apply corporate capital punishment? While I would never commit nor advocate violence against any human being, corporations are goddamn well not human beings. I’d very much like to see Facebook receive the legal equivalent of decapitation, a stake through its heart, and burial at a crossroads.
Sure, people would lose their jobs. But there would be new companies springing up immediately to fill in the gaps, and they would need employees. They might also be a bit more conscious that we don’t want to put up with their destructive, devious, dangerous crap any more.
Microsoft didn’t see the Web coming. As far as they were concerned, people would sign up to “The Microsoft Network” in droves and spend all their time online in Microsoft’s carefully controlled walled garden, just like they used to do on AOL and CompuServe.
