We are lost in an ever growing corporate forest of big business and mega-corporations. For the most part we view the impact that these companies have on our lives as positive.
However the super fast connectivity they give us, along with their at=a-touch-of-a-button information, immediate delivery and shiny new products, comes at a price.
The very nature of their size means that they will crush competition and come to dominate their respective spaces. With no resistance to their rule, it is they that actually become the rule of law.
Is this inevitable? Do all companies that grow past a certain size just naturally become evil?
Can we calculate it? Is there some kind of hidden evil, algorithm, that will be able to predict the exact point a company will go bad?
The Path Of Least Resistance
Let us take a moment to relax our lovely little minds, letting me lead you on a meandering stroll along the hazy sunlit path of another thought experiment.
Imagine if you will, that you have just started a small software company. You are excited because you have developed voice recognition software that will allow people to instantly converse with anyone in any language in real time.
Your software is soon being used all over the world, translators go out of business overnight, and everyone's happy; apart from the poor translators of course.
Stage One - The Garden Is Sold
Whilst you are enjoying your new found success of course; you have a burning desire to be a mega-billionaire, so you promptly sell the company for mega-billions.
Of course you retain a five percent share and the Chairman's seat on the board, however the company is no longer yours.
The new owners who consist of other companies and public shareholders, are keen to realise the mega-billions they have spent on your baby, as quickly as possible.
So things start to change, they look to advertising as now they have a medium that can advertise to anybody in any language with just one campaign.
Suddenly people aren't so happy anymore.
Stage Two - Information Gathering - The Road To Unhappiness
Advertising works great if you tell millions of people your message. It works even better if you only speak to the people who are interested in hearing your message. Advertising works best of all, when you tell people who want to hear your message and are also ready to buy from you.
You can only deliver such a targeted message to complete strangers, if you gather as much information as possible on them, essentially spying.
Of course any spying is consensual, this is because your old company will weave an agreement of complicity into the terms of service. Much like when Facebook openly tell you that they are tracking your movements, even when you don't use the site.
Stage Three - Resident Evil
Of course people don't take kindly to being spied upon, even when they agree to it in the first place. In fact it could be said to be worse. Rather like a digital crack dealer, you have allowed your customers a taste of the product. Then once they are hooked, you put not only a price on it, you also tag on unreasonable demands.
Now you are Chairman of a company that everybody hates, they love your products, but they hate you, you are the sleazy dealer who gave them a vision of a wonderful future, only to take a big fat, advertising-shaped dump all over their hopes and dreams.
Ordering The New World
Back to reality, and perhaps it is simply the fact that large companies, have enough clout to make a large impact, and you simply can't please all of the people, all of the time.
From blockchain technology, to quantum computing. The world of tomorrow is here now, and with it comes changes.
The way we secure our information, and indeed the way we identify ourselves online will evolve along with these wholesale changes we are to experience.
Maybe things will change, and large organisations will be more representative of society and its desires. Perhaps the blockchain, or indeed the quantum blockchain, will be the key to the gates, to that particular garden . .
. . . and who knows what delights might await us inside?
DO ALL CORPORATIONS AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER GO BAD? IS IT BECAUSE THEY SERVE MULTIPLE INTERESTS? ARE ALL CORPORATIONS EVIL, OR ARE SOME GOOD? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW WHAT YOU THINK!