No, wait!
Excellent article by Pinkerton on the digital emperors. He compares Schmidt, Jobs, Bezos, etc to the Conquistadores who took over the vast and powerful empires of Peru and Mexico with a few hundred men.

Yet it soon became clear that Google had figured out the digital equivalent of a better mousetrap. In this case, the prey was data, especially data related to advertising. And here, the naiveté of those in Google’s path was equally stunning.

For example, newspapers. In 1995, there were some 2,100 of them in the United States, all making money, or at least trying to, by selling hard copies as well as advertising.

Then along came Google, which scooped up their advertising revenues. And what was the newspapers’ response? These hardbitten cynics? Like the meekest lambs being led to the slaughter, almost all of them put their content online for free. Why? Because they had been bowled over by the mystique of the internet gods: they thought that they, too, had to submit.

So Google happily scooped up that newspaper content, making it freely available online. Analogically speaking, the resulting destruction of newspapers ranks up there with the destruction of the Aztecs and Incas.

My first thought: The old American tribes didn't always give up. In some cases they used clever tactics to undermine the overconfident Euros. Beautiful example is Chief Pontiac, who conquered a British fort by inviting the soldiers to watch a huge game of lacrosse. When the soldiers were outside the gates and fully absorbed in Superbowl, the Injuns roared into the fort, took it over, and used the weapons to mow down the Brits.

Second thought: NO. WAIT. That's precisely what Google did to the newspapers! Softened them up by offering an innocent form of entertainment, then moved into the content, seized the advertising weapons, and used the weapons to mow down the papers.

The analogy works in deeper detail as well. The Brits had captured their forts from the French. The French didn't have nearly as much trouble with the Injuns because they treated them reasonably well, offering medical care and assistance when needed. There was no resentment, nothing to gain by killing the French. The Brits were violently and ferociously arrogant. They refused all help and respect to the Injuns.

Newspapers are also violently and ferociously arrogant. Papers write ABOUT and FOR the Insatiables, and spend most of their time and energy spitting and shitting on Deplorables. This was true for several decades before the Web. So the papers had no base of support except the Insatiable advertisers. They had ruined their own chance to survive on subscriptions.

= = = = =

So: If Google was Chief Pontiac, does that mean the anti-digitals shouldn't or can't use similar tactics? No. In fact it means the opposite. In 2000 Google was the small insurgent conquering the giant well-organized media. Now that Google is the armed and arrogant giant, anti-digital insurgents have to use undermining and trickery. Leaking the METHODS of criminals, as Wikileaks was doing for a while, is the best available underminer. After a METHOD is widely known, the criminal can't use it as a weapon.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

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