What would happen if I wrote the next great American novel on Blogger? Do I own the rights to it? Or does Google (who owns Blogger)? All the information I've published on Blogger goes to Google servers in remote and secret locations. What would stop them from taking my novel and publishing it and reaping the benefits? This is a problem with cloud computing. My information and content "goes up into the cloud" but I don't own "the cloud". The cloud is a property of Google and they let me use it. Cloud computing is extraordinarily convenient. If I need something on another computer, I can just email it to myself and bam, I can download it whenever I want, where ever I am, as long as there is a computer with Web access.
The cloud is addicting. That is something we say all the time: "I'm addicted to [insert technology or digital product]." But I don't think we really are, not like the addiction of drugs which can fundamentally change our biology (although, this may be true of technology as well). I think technology gives the illusion of agency; it makes us feel like we're in control. And we like that. But we're not in control. Google owns this blog. They own every word of it, despite the fact that my name is on the blog and I write everything and I can open it and write whenever I want. This is not my blog. None of the photos on my Facebook account are mine; none of my tweets are mine. However, I do control my online portfolio, mitchmalone.net. I own the server, I own the domain. But I don't think that's why I control it. There must be more to it.
The truly disheartening notion about this lack of agency is how companies can shape us while we use their products. We use Facebook because we like to connect and share things with our friends. Facebook claims that is what it is there for. Have you ever wondered why there is no "dislike" button? I think it's because Facebook is a marketing tool more so than a social networking site. Facebook doesn't want to lose advertising dollars because 90,000 users dislike Coca-Cola. Again, we claim we have control over the digital products we use but I'm convinced we have less than we think. All 500 million users of Facebook could sign a petition to add a dislike button, but it will never happen; Facebook would fail as a business if that happened.
We are distracted by an illusion of control, a notion that we are connecting and sharing with friends, when really we are simply a big focus group, supplying organizations with galaxies of information to help them sell more shit to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment