I’m old enough, though not by a whole lot, to clearly remember a time when my every movement wasn’t monitored and my every social interaction wasn’t a commodity to be analyzed and sold. When my need to connect with my fellow humans didn’t mean being a product and those connections weren’t a list of fungible data points. I remember, though dimly, when the Internet was this miraculous new thing that was going to save us all by making free knowledge and instant communication accessible to everyone with a computer. The Internet was supposed to be our real-life ansible.
The idea that people who are only a couple of years younger than me just didn’t get to experience that at all blows my mind if I think about it, which I try not to.
So like, Listen: The way things are is not normal. And, dammit, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. And, more importantly: It doesn’t have to be like this.
We can’t turn back the clock, but we shouldn’t even if we could. What now serves profit can be made to serve human need, and what’s broken can be fixed.
We built this damned thing. We ought to be the ones controlling it.
