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Mistrust of Google and Facebook is a 'Contagion' That Could Spread To Every Tech Company, Says Box CEO Aaron Levie (recode.net)
Aaron Levie isn't worried about his company, Box, being regulated -- but he is worried about what happens if the government has to do something about Facebook. From a report: "It's a contagion because it's going to reduce trust in these types of platforms," Levie said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. "The worst-case scenario for us is that Silicon Valley gets so far behind on these issues that we just can't be trusted as an industry," he said. "We rely on the Fortune 500 trusting Silicon Valley's technology, to some extent, for our success. When you see that these tools can be manipulated or they're being used in more harmful ways, or regulators are stamping them down, then that impacts anybody, whether you're consumer or enterprise."
Really. Just do it. Critical thinking is a good thing.
The thing is, it's ALWAYS been possible to manipulate these sorts of platforms. Recall the results that Google used to return for "more evil than satan himself" and "miserable failure"? No? Fine... go ahead and Google for "Santorum". You'll still get more than a dozen mixtures of lube and fecal matter before you get to the actual stack of crap that used to be a senator. And this is nothing new to the internet. Howard Stern used to engage in the pastime of having his listeners prank call news stations with "reports" blaming everything from the death of John Kennedy Jr. to the bomb attack in the old WTC's parking garage on his producer: "ba ba booey". And none other than Dan Rather once got fooled by a fake report wrt/ George Bush #2's national guard service.
The fact that media platforms can be manipulated and fooled doesn't make them inherently untrustworthy. It means that they're designed and operated by human beings. And humans are inherently prone to making mistakes; particularly when they're deliberately misled. That doesn't mean anyone should distrust legitimate and reputable media and run off into conspiracy theory and they're-out-to-get-me paranoia land. It means you should just check multiple sources and apply critical thinking skills to what you read and hear.
Imagine all the people...
Also you have a horrible understanding of the word profit. You use it as an insult. A company does not survive long without either making a profit or taking out more debt and selling more securities. The second option of debt or securities only lasts for a while. There are plenty of tech companies long gone who thought they would get by without taking profits for years or decades. They were very wrong.
Please do try to educate yourself before posting nonsense.
Snapchat filed an IPO last year. In their public offering paperwork, they blatantly stated that they've never made a profit, and may never actually make a profit in the future. Naturally they valued themselves north of $20 billion.
THAT is what is "very wrong" with capitalism today. Forget basic business 101; I'm talking about the kind of Greed that allows companies to even exist with that kind of stupid mentality about profitability. THAT is the kind of stupid shit that makes profitability (and common-sense capitalism) irrelevant. And you're right; it doesn't make sense, but we've reached that infamous crossroads again where selling hype is more valuable than a sound business plan.
Oh, and don't think we're going to see Dot Bomb v2.0 come along to reset this stupidity. We now have shit like Too Big To Fail to thank for removing the logical options for companies that should fall over and die.