Paying for Freedom
Why do we still enable the business of exploitation?
I’ve been thinking about where society really went wrong …
… and I think I’ve found the moment it happened.
And … I think I have a simple solution … if you read to the end!…
Do you remember this old adage?
If you don’t pay for the product – you are the product.
That snappy little phrase actually hides the seismic change that has disrupted the way that human civilisation operates.
It started with the explosion of the internet but it has metastasised in two significant ways:
Technofeudalism
We are weirdly returning to a feudal world… where we own nothing and subscribe to everything.Technoauthoritarianism
And at the same time we are no-longer just selling our attention but we’re selling our identities and our free-will.
Technofeudalism
We might initially have thought it was great to be able to listen to any song … or watch any TV show … for a simple monthly subscription.
And we might not care that we no longer really own our music, our films… or our cars… or in many cases, our homes.
But when we no longer buy the product … the shape of actual the product changes to fit the new market it exists within.
Music and TV isn’t built to satisfy the kind of imperatives that a discerning buying audience might have.
TV, particularly, is built to satisfy the algorithmic model of the streaming services… sticky, continuous narratives, stretched episodically to keep buyers watching past the trial; narratives that conform to the homogenised prediction of the people-who-liked-this-will-like-that algorithm.
The same can even be said for houses. Very few homes are designed by those who would live in them … just like few TV programmes are chosen by those who would watch. Houses are built to satisfy the mortgage company, not the individual… for resaleability, predictability and speed.
Everything we consume is a recommendation.
Nothing is designed for you anymore.
Technoauthoritarianism
Meanwhile, our lives are forever being harvested.
Google harvests our search history, Meta harvests our social micro-interactions, Amazon harvest our faces as we walk past your front door.
Palantir harvests everything our government knows about you and Elon is most likely harvesting your every movement.
They all, also, harvest data about you from myriad third party data brokers.
Even your TV is sold to you at cost … because the manufacturer knows they will make money selling information about who you are once you switch it on.
And why is all this data so valuable?
It used to be that if I know everything about you then I can sell you more things…
… but now its that if I know everything about you then I can tell you how to vote.
Maybe not overnight … but slowly, with enough effort … a TV station here, a social network there … by reshaping your world around you … someone who holds all the data … and has your eyeballs for long enough each day …
… can change the way you think.
And if they can’t change you, that doesn’t matter. They can still change enough people to swing an election … and if not this one, the next one.
These people are playing the long game … they don’t believe in democracy … we are the proverbial frog in the saucepan … and they have their hand on the dial.
The simple solution?
Yes, I wouldn’t write all this if I didn’t think there was something we could do about it right now.
I know I talk a lot about regulation and I know it’s got a bad reputation but honestly, it’s the answer … and it doesn’t have to be complicated.
It comes down to this:
Either a business is selling you something to enrich your life …
…. or your life is being sold to enrich the business.
Why don’t we regulate business to say that you must sell direct …
What if we said:
You cannot subsidise the cost of a product by exploiting what you learn about the consumer through their use of that product.
I appreciate that there are a lot of horrible things in this world… and a lot of horrible people …
I get that national economies are complicated and that we live in a competitive world …
I get that our economy and therefore our governments serve at the pleasure of the bond markets …
… but it cannot be right that the best business to be in today is the business of selling people. We’ve been here before and it wasn’t okay then.
Today’s exploitation is more subtle. We have the illusion of freedom - in fact, we enjoy a great many freedoms still, for now.
But our freedoms - even our capacity and right to think for ourselves - are being eroded because our governments are too feckless to see what’s really happening.
And all that is really needed for society to thrive is that individual governments stop the sale of their people for the exploitation of their attention and personal freedom.
All that is needed is for individual governments to regulate that people can only buy the product … they can no-longer be the product.
This change - this one small change - would surely lead to a more just, safe and bright future for us all.