I was signing in to my account, because I wanted to write something. However, as is all-too-often the case, by the time I got past the various plugin pop-ups and notifications, I forget what I wanted to say.
The guys who founded Google are slightly older than me, and Zuckerberg is about my age. Like many Xinnenials, I grew up with the impression that the Baby Boomers basically “pulled the ladder up behind themselves,” so nobody else could climb it. However, like the plant that sprouts in a crack in the road, we wound up with cryptocurrencies. Probably like air travel, bitcoins seemed like a solution in search of a problem, but that’s because I grew up surrounded by Boomers, awash in their propaganda. But the younger generations will depose the older generations. Try as they might to create dynasties and lasting heredity rule, that tends to be harder to establish than to want.
I think the Internet kinda sucks now cuz too many people want to make easy money by doing the same type of stuff they know from having seen it before. Linguist George Lakoff said of frames (perspectives): one frame will persist until another deposes it. The Internet today is awash in ads because nobody has presented a compelling vision for replacing that which we already know.
Years ago, I lived in Seattle and saw spray paint graffiti on the bike path one morning. It’s stuck with me since. It said, “Drag them into the future.” I think that is indeed a salient “Call To Action.” I get the impression some people think it’s desirable to stay in place, but I personally do not think that’s even possible. Here we are, on this big ol space rock that we call Earth, and things are always changing: empires rise and fall, species come and go, and people work continuously to understand why we’re even here and what to do about it.
From that perspective, splash ads and tracking pixels seem really fucking stupid.