Let’s face it, we are all at the mercy of the tech giants in running sustainable digital business models that are made possible by complex monetization processes. The slow and painful die off of the print medium has brandished a demonic wild west goose chase of online entrepreneurs in finding the next lucrative geyser ejecting volumes of cash throughout the commerce space, before the Google’s and social networks of the world abruptly shut her down with the adept wrench of a deployed algorithm or two.
As visitors to electronics and the volume of downloaded apps generate revenue from tie-ins to the major players in Silicon Valley, the volatile process for mining dollars already began to shift before the rules were established, directly leading to local content on news sites being phased out for generalized click bait. The global effect has decimated the proliferation of information specific to communities, and has monetization has in general become passe to the relentless and constant stream of consumer information being mined directly from the voice of the end user requesting their artificial intelligence servant to play a different song, the powers that be of the search engine and social media realm are forced to reinvent the pyramid or yield to the iPhone and Android overlords.
In recent weeks, the leadership at F***book has taken to the mainstream media in proclaiming that the company will rekindle a push to monopolized hyper-local news, an idea that is so wrong on so many levels, that a temporary mirage of hipsters and libertarians gracefully coexisting in a functioning capitalistic utopia suburb obscures the encampments of the homeless industrial complex on has materialized on a scorching LA evening, as the parched earth littered with detritus and unfettered chaos is replaced by a wave of bureaucrats racing away from the imagined and enlightened prosperous township of unity. How can an organization so vast that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and with a track record on par with the ethics of Michael Milken in deliberately compromising the privacy of account holders and burying conservative content continue to remain perpetually oblivious to the reality that people know the score as the US audience dwindles? In reverse Jeopardy engineering, the answer is Mark Zuckerberg and crew.
In planning to take control of the media in the smaller markets, F***book has unleashed a powerful offensive against the First Amendment pertaining to basic journalistic tenets, and the only recourse is that account holders remain vigilant in questioning what they see or read, or innovation develops a competing product that resonates with users and stops the insanity. While these scenarios are as unlikely as Chuck Schumer joining the comedian circuit and rocking the joint, and cousin Amy rubber stamping in the nation’s capital, within the technicolor dreamcoat of contemporary reality, anything is possible, especially if it is posted in a viral meme.