Robert Rode
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

To some extent, capitalism is programmed by its successes. We forget how much the tech giants already have reprogrammed capitalism, though there is much work left to do. The big software companies reprogram society through impact on corporate and consumer culture, pressure on centrally planned systems, and by changing the nature of the problems faced by consumers.

Information is best acquired through experimentation(and failure), and Amazon and Google both allow experimentation throughout their org charts. That’s not true of all corporate behemoths. Google’s blameless postmortems are a rarity in business. The tech giants drive their businesses on the outcomes of that experimentation, such as Google’s technocratic A/B/N testing and Amazon’s customer obsession. Both of these companies earn and influence their consumers and suppliers, and other companies line up to learn from their experiences. At Boeing, I used Google’s Rework site to drive change, and I am hardly unique. Open network culture is viral, and older companies are adapting accordingly. This pressure is slow, but inevitable.

The internet’s effect on consumer culture is immense, and the tech giants enable this renaissance. Publishing platforms like Kindle and Spotify eschew gatekeepers, preferring hard data and matching algorithms. This is a revelation for arts and culture that will continue to develop organically. Of course, those gatekeepers in the large publishing and music houses feel threatened. Personally, I prefer a system that rewards content-creators over gatekeepers, even if we have to weather growing pains during the transition.

Similarly, the advertising-supported “push” model of television attention markets is being challenged fundamentally by “fetch” models with Amazon Video and Netflix. We already have already witnessed a fundamental shift in creative control and freedom of expression as quality, not access, has become the largest driver of attention in television. YoutubeTV and Hulu Live TV will further erode the lines between broadcast and narrowcast, using huge DVR capability to essentially fracture broadcast into fetch media.

This has an impact on value systems. Art can take more direct shots at power, with documentaries like Blood on the Mountain or Making of a Murderer garnering production money when they would not previously. Fiction can speak truth to power without moving through the big production houses and all of their internal politics and power structures. This has the effect of widening the Overton window and exposing citizens to a bit more uncomfortable truths than in decades past.

The platforms that these tech companies produce, such as AWS, Kindle, the Google Play Store, Youtube — they all empower little people, citizens who might never have found a marketplace for their creative and entrepreneurial output. Citizens who cannot afford to open a brick and mortar business or build a data center can now participate in the digital economy with ease. Even Medium gives me this ability to converse with a writer from the Economist, without the friction of a postal service.

Capitalism is based on extractive engines, with America’s interdependent trade model both driving peace and strife over the world. Amy Chua’s World on Fire clearly illustrates the effects of the US attempt to export our particular brand of capitalism. But for all of its faults, capitalism rewards innovation, and the internet economy is an innovative update from within. It is a refresh for American capitalism that is already blurring national boundaries, from things as simple as easy translation between any language, to navigation data for nearly any form of transportation, anywhere. The engine these companies use is information, but information has always been a tool of power. But now you can search any book ever written on Google, or use Overdrive to read them in full without paying a cent. We live in a time that every citizen with access to the internet can very nearly access all of the recorded informational output of human history. There’s no way we will remain unchanged.

But we will see problems. As automation allows a direct transfer of capital into production without touching labor, how will capital flow to the working class? What happens as weapons manufacturers and food companies get smarter? How will coming advances in genetics affect food systems? How will competing logistics systems co-op and pervert the lessons of Amazon? There will always be powerful people and organizations who prioritize self-interest over group survival. It is the human condition. But these problems are solvable. Just look how far we’ve come.

    Robert Rode

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