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Replace 'Tech' With 'Banks,' and We've Seen a Big Comeuppance Before (nytimes.com)
Nathaniel Popper, writing for The New York Times: When I moved to the Bay Area two years ago, it was with a sense of relief. Relief from New York winters and deteriorating subways, yes. But also relief after six years of covering Wall Street, an industry that had moved from one crisis to another after the financial crash of 2008, drawing the unending wrath of the public. In California I was joining a growing team of reporters covering Silicon Valley, which had quickly become the new engine of the economy. Just like Wall Street before it lost its luster, the tech industry had become the destination of choice for the top college graduates. I would be writing about a place where everyone was focused more on the future than on the past.
Now, just two years after getting here, and a decade after the start of the financial crisis, I have a creeping sense of deja vu as I go about my job. Admiration of the tech world has, in the wake of a growing list of scandals, quickly soured into an intense suspicion that manages to cross partisan lines, similar to what Wall Street faced after 2008 [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. As I have watched the recent parade of tech executives being grilled by Washington lawmakers from across the political spectrum, it has been eerily reminiscent of the combative hearings the big banks faced back in 2009 and 2010. As was true after the financial crisis, the backlash against tech rises out of a public awakening to the integral role that these huge companies occupy in our society -- with Facebook, Uber and Twitter playing the part that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase did a decade ago.
Now, just two years after getting here, and a decade after the start of the financial crisis, I have a creeping sense of deja vu as I go about my job. Admiration of the tech world has, in the wake of a growing list of scandals, quickly soured into an intense suspicion that manages to cross partisan lines, similar to what Wall Street faced after 2008 [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. As I have watched the recent parade of tech executives being grilled by Washington lawmakers from across the political spectrum, it has been eerily reminiscent of the combative hearings the big banks faced back in 2009 and 2010. As was true after the financial crisis, the backlash against tech rises out of a public awakening to the integral role that these huge companies occupy in our society -- with Facebook, Uber and Twitter playing the part that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase did a decade ago.
These are the people that build the hardware and write the code that the modern world runs on. And proceed to build it so full of backdoors and security holes that it at some point is likely to bring down a very large company if not country. Cutting corners and saving a few minutes all in pursuit of the almighty profit. Yup, nothing going on here.
The banks appear to have continued fucking everyone, so whatever their comeuppance was, it was not enough. Surely the response towards tech will be even weaker.
The banks are still running everything. They got a bailout and they got to keep the properties on which they knowingly sold bad mortgages for which they got bailed out. We paid for those homes and didn't even get them. Tell me again about this "big backlash".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Once a corporation gets big enough, it looses any soul it may have had. It's structural and systemic.
Tech is really boring these days. Back in the 90's when the net was taking off and interesting things were happening with computers (and a lot of tech companies still had some soul), one could at least naively believe in it. I did -- naively. I ran an Internet company -- I was "democratizing information" -- and thought I was doing social good.
It's all so about the money now even the naive can't believe it all.
if we held back new hardware and software until all possible security holes have been fixed we'd still be waiting for the first CPU and an OS to run on it.
So in other words, we can expect a few years of increased scrutiny, and then everything will be back to business as usual for the tech companies.
Don't be so sure -- the rich NEED the markets to tank every decade or so to make more money.
Also, what's wrong with buying rental property in down times and renting to the tech workers? Services to tech workers are better investments than the tech firms themselves.
Just like many more people got rich selling shovels and food to gold miners than mining gold themselves.
Facebook is an advertising company.
Uber is a taxi service.
Twitter is an internet message board (ok, that's sort-of tech).
Google is an advertising company.
Actual tech companies aren't having the same troubles.
this stuff goes in cycles in many industries
get used to it, bail and get a job in different area on the downward side
Don't condemn journalism by the actions of just one twit. This article draws vastly incorrect parallels between the financial crisis and the tech industry. YES, the tech industry has its own huge and costly problems. But there aren't the same parallels, or even congruencies between the financial meltdown and tech.
This said, tech security is its worst problem. That the spooks in gov have manipulated it into Spy vs Spy is even more onerous. Add in lack of controls on data sets, and indeed something will explode, but its' not going to bring down the economy, IMHO.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It's worth mentioning the banks largely didn't do anything illegal. They either had a lawyer verify all their decisions, or they bought new laws. They were able to stay exactly within the letter of the law, be unethical without crossing the line. You have to be foolish to break the law when you have those kinds of options. (Like Madoff).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There are companies shipping products with zero security, because they think it impacts time to market. There are products that NEED security that don't have it. There are also products that advertise having good security that actually have substandard security.
We don't hang people anymore. And doing your absolute best for the country regardless of competency is the furthest thing from treason. You have to prove intent to try someone for treason. The FBI proved that when they dismissed Hillary from wrong doing.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Actually... If Facebook or Twitter were to fail, apart from employees and shareholders, very little parts of the economy would suffer. Marketing would have to reinvent itself and find new ways of reaching people, end of. WhatsApp could be replaced by almost anything else (is Viber still running?)
Google, Apple and Microsoft would be a bit different. We'd all lose our emails, support for our phones / computers / wearables etc. But that can be restructured/sold under Chapter 11 proceedings.
Amazon is "just" a bit marketplace. People would find a way to start selling stuff elsewhere!
TL;DR: Nobody in the tech industry is too big to fail. Let them.