. Others that once reigned are gone. Companies that made headlines, like Digital and Netscape, Alta Vista, Napster, GeoCities, Friends Reunited, Iomega and Compaq. Not to mention the drama that wasOne of my little regrets is not having carefully saved all the company T-shirts I’d be given at conferences and events. Instead, I generally wore them for dirty chores, like painting the house, and they were tossed into oblivion.
The other is to always remain suspicious and sceptical. With hindsight, so many companies, large and small, that seemed lighthearted, “cool”, groundbreaking and in the business of offering “innovation” have turned out to be shameless global burdens – furtive, law-skimming, greedy exploiters of their “users”, people and society.
Governments, regulators, industry and all of us can be so easily taken in by tech baubles, too passive – even unwilling – to recognise and tackle the problems they can obscure. It’s sometimes depressing to look back at columns I wrote 10 or 20 years ago and see the exact same unresolved issues around data privacy, copyright, regulation, control, surveillance, digital access and equality, just to list a few topics.
Nonetheless, despite – no actually because of – the wild ride, it’s been an honour and a pleasure to write for you about an industry that dazzles and depresses, inspires and exasperates, and constantly, for better or worse, changes our world.