Earlier this month Amazon not only pulled a number of eBooks from their online catalogs, but also deleted such eBooks from the Kindles of people who had purchased such eBooks. The reason: some kind of publishing/copyright debacle.
But ironic it is that one of the eBooks in question was 1984, the classic dystopian novel that introduced us, back in 1949, to “Big Brother”.
But the real novel is right now about the Dystopian (business) structures by companies such as Amazon (and Apple).
Dystopia begins with ignorance and the hope of an Utopian society or business structure that in the name of “our own good” or the “good of the business/investors” instead turns into a nightmare.
Today we have companies that can easily turn from their Utopian beginnings to true Dystopia — with our personal information that they own and control. And as in the case of Amazon, the *invasion by the company* which to them at first seemed such a natural course of action; but it was not.
Since then, Amazon has apologized and has promised not to do that again…
But this pattern will continue because *we* allow it to happen; we give up our own individual rights, via EULAs and Terms-and-Conditions; as I said, Dystopia begins with ignorance… And it is all around us; in businesses such as Apple, Amazon, MSFT, Google and other. And governments with their pervasive surveillance (and control), and the escalation on the rights of the individual.
ceo
Pingback: About Mobility » Blog Archive » Twitter and the Library of Congress