The US techlash is real
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Then to top it off they just aren’t charismatic at best, or actively disdainful of the plebs at worst.
Bezos is probably the best at speaking to regular people but then you have guys like Musk who if he was just a blue collar stiff, would be getting his ass beat frequently if he showed up to bars and acted the way he does.
I was watching a video about Gen Z versus Millennial views on this subject and they talked about how when Millennials were in high school and college, tech innovation was moving fast and delivering really useful, fun technology. It was also a lot less pervasive and all-encompassing in scope. It wasn’t a massive machine of surveillance capitalism, or at least, not in the same way. Figuring out which banner ads resonate with each user was a lot more innocent than private surveillance cameras on our streets doing Minority Report-style policing.
There was a time when Facebook was just a chronological feed of the things your friends were doing. Heck, there was a time when the feed didn’t exist at all.
Gen Z and younger came up in a very different era.
The wealth growth of some of these tech CEOs is eye-watering. The idea that Musk was worth less than $30 billion 2020 is astounding. To go from $30 billion to a trillionaire in 6 years is something that shouldn’t even be possible.
The other thing about the AI revolution is that it’s one of the big tech advancements that seems indifferent to end consumers. It’s very B2B in nature: use our AI to make your workers more productive or reduce headcount. Previous innovations seemed to benefit everyone.
For the average consumer, AI is making a lot of things in life worse in terms of the touch points we all interact with on a daily basis. We contact support and now it’s an annoying AI bot. We open our apps and they’ve messed up their UX with new AI features that don’t work very well. Certain industries are already seeing layoffs for the low hanging fruit that AI works for with no real replacement careers coming up.
Sure, AI (not LLMs) are literally going to cure cancer, but that’s a much more difficult and intangible thing for the average person to grasp. And it’s not here yet. And US health insurance costs are up by over 20% compared to last year.
I think millennials are even more upset by this than other generations. They grew up with a version of internet technology that was useful and non-exploitive, then watched greedy tech companies and CEOs about face and burn it all down to make extra billions.
If AI cures cancer it will likely do so in a world of such horrible inequality that only the rich will be able to afford the cure
I definitely remember a moment of endless leaked dick pic stories that came out back in 2010 or 2011.
As a millennial looking outward, gen-z seems to have embraced a full attachment to technology in a very open way. They almost act like their value as a human being is determined by the visibility of their online presence.
I think a lot of the complaints about tech these days come from the feeling that it's trying to own your life rather than improve your life. Things like tractors that won't go if you don't pay their subscription fees; cars that won't go if you don't pay their subscription fees; music collections that you don't actually possess and that go away if you don't pay their subscription fees; photo & backup services that make all your childhood memories go away if you don't pay their subscription fees; proprietary defaults that auto-opt-you-in to these services so you don't realize you can't access the photos without paying their subscription fees; SaaS vendors that hold your business hostage until you pay their subscription fees; search advertising that holds the path to your customers hostage unless all your profits go to them; search/AI engines that are ~70% accurate but don't provide any good way of seeking out alternative information; E-commerce platforms that take your money but give you junk instead; building contractors that take your money but give you junk instead; insurance companies that take your money but don't actually pay out claims; rent that keeps increasing by the maximum amount each year but never bothers to service habitability concerns with the place; and so on.
I think a lot of the frustration today comes from the feeling that people are treading water not to improve their lives, but to make somebody else rich, oftentimes people who aren't working at all.