The Internet Power Grab
from the what-are-you-doing? dept
An interesting column in Fast Company basically yelling at folks in Silicon Valley for not actually doing anything about all these laws coming up that are clearly bad. Yes, many people are yelling and complaining online about these things, but there hasn't been the same sort of political action that the writer believes would have happened five years ago. I'm not so sure that's true. I think groups like DigitalConsumer and others have shown that political response has become more organized these days than it was five years ago. The problem is that many people are more concerned about actually finding a job than protesting stupid policymakers. Furthermore, people are paying a lot less attention to what people are saying in Silicon Valley. Five years ago people were afraid that if Silicon Valley disagreed, the economy could collapse. Now, the economy has collapsed, and Silicon Valley looks like a bunch of whiners.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
