Howdy,
Some exciting news has some around - I've been accepted to NAU's Counseling - Student Affairs Master's program! The idea of me being in grad school is still quite crazy and probably will be for some time. Between now and March I'll be trying to get a graduate assistantship to be fully accepted to the program since that is required. Time to prepare to move across the country again!
Outside of that, I've been thinking about the state of the internet recently which expands further to the existence of this website. All (at least, nearly) of the big platforms exist solely to connect two sides of a market. Amazon connects businesses to customers, spotify artists to listeners, you get the idea. In practice pretty much every company has followed the same path: created to change up the industry and flush with venture capital cash, they will create a platform that is truly beneficial to everyone but is not profitable to themselves in order to take market share. Once they've managed to snag a majority of the customer base, they will begin to implement policies to become profitable. In my opinion this is just predatory pricing, but it is a staple of the industry at this point.
The internet was made for the decentralized sharing of ideas. More and more we are seeing a centralized, monopolized, and overall worse-performing internet. In search of profitability these companies have begun putting their own products ahead of already existing ones, further cementing their monopolies. Sellers on Amazon are functionally forced to pay Amazon a significant percentage of their revenue via participating in the Prime program or else they will be pushed further down the list of products that customers see. On top of that, popular product categories will have Amazon directly compete with sellers through Amazon Basics. Thankfully, Amazon has scrapped their extra fee for non-prime products sold on their site. Due to Amazon's estimated 50+% market share of all e-commerce, these policies put smaller businesses in an impossible situation. Situations like these are found across the internet. We are definitely at the end of the golden era of the internet.
Another huge issue with our current internet is the fact that people do not own anything anymore. Online cloud storage is nothing more than renting someone else's computer - would you keep your social security card in someone else's house? Streaming platforms have content come and go constantly. Those who "buy" content online have had their products removed because the business has lost their licensing for that content. Some online have responded with the phrase "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" (I am not endorsing piracy of content, simply highlighting current discourse). I haven't even gotten into privacy in this rambling! It's an awful situation for everyone who uses the internet.
Any solution to these problems is much beyond me. What I try to do is interact with websites and companies who are committed to privacy and store my own content to maintain ownership. I'd like to invite any commentary by email below. Thanks.
Brendan Trachsel © Copyright 2024 
