Why Capitalism Ruined Our Technology & How Better Capitalism Can Fix It
- Robert Carnes
- 6 hours ago
- 9 min read
Robert Carnes is the author of several books and a master storyteller. In his current role, he's the marketing director for GreenMellen, an Atlanta-based growing digital marketing company, and he is frequently engaged to show businesses how to use storytelling to do marketing better. And yes, he's a tech wiz. We're honored Robert has joined us as a contributing writer to share his insightful views at the intersection of Big Tech and a better capitalism.
A decade ago, I admired Big Tech. I was a genuine fan of companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon. They seemed innovative and interesting—and, importantly, willing to use their power and influence for the betterment of mankind.
My dream was to work for one of them and become a part of the magic. I even got to know several people who worked for these and similar tech companies. I honestly believed that they lived at least loosely by Google’s former motto of “don’t be evil.”
Image Credit: Creative Commons
A few years ago, my perspective shifted.
It began when I read the book The Four by NYU professor Scott Galloway. Released in 2018, the book is a stark criticism of the four leading American technology companies: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. For me, seeing into the heart of these companies was eye opening.
When Tech Things Fall Apart
The Cambridge Analytica scandal involving Facebook and the 2016 U.S. presidential election was another major blow to the credibility of Big Tech. Facebook’s complicit involvement in the 2017 Myanmar genocide didn’t help either.
The world’s biggest social media company suddenly went from a bastion of community and connection to a cesspool of misinformation and political tension. Zuckerberg’s 2025 announcement that the company would stop its fact-checking efforts feels like the last straw.
Facebook is far from the only villain here. Google has also been criticized for spreading misinformation and manipulating its search algorithms. A 2024 leak of their search algorithm further exposed how disingenuous they’ve been. They’ve recently lost an antitrust case proving they’re an unfair monopoly; they even removed the “don’t be evil” clause from their website.
For all its focus on user satisfaction and logistics innovation, Amazon has a long track record of mistreating its employees. They’re not allowed to unionize or even go to the bathroom. Not to mention the environmental waste created by all that shipping of cheap goods.
Amazon has also been the subject of an antitrust lawsuit. They’ve been known to copy best-selling products and box out smaller competitors. They lock your eBooks so you can only use them on Amazon devices, and they probably spy on us using Alexa devices.
What Went Wrong with Big Tech
How did we get here? Why did the darlings of 21st-century American capitalism go sour? There are a few different elements I believe have contributed to our current state.
Surveillance capitalism
Google is free to use. Facebook is also free. Amazon sells Kindle and Alexa devices for next to nothing. That doesn’t mean there’s not a hidden cost involved.
When there’s no cost to you to use a platform, you are the product. These technology platforms lured people in with the illusion of value and then monetized our attention to sell to advertisers.
Anti-competitive practices
Nearly all the Big Tech companies have faced antitrust lawsuits within the last decade. For all their claims of innovation, they often stifle competition.
Sometimes that’s by leveraging their massive influence and user base to undercut other companies and small businesses. Just as often, Big Tech firms eliminate the competition by simply acquiring them. Meta has become notorious for its big spending on Instagram and WhatsApp. Google did the same with YouTube and Android.
It’s clear there’s just too much power consolidated into the hands of too few. Hopefully, the U.S. courts get it right by breaking up some of these tech monopolies. However, even when Microsoft lost their landmark antitrust case in 1998, not much happened as a result.
Outside pressures
Technology companies are valued differently from other businesses. They’re allowed to post financial losses for years while they build up users and collect user data. Tech startups are known to burn through investor capital like wildfire in the pursuit of becoming the next unicorn.
Many of these investments fail, which also means there is tremendous pressure on the few profitable companies to carry the burden of the others. Capitalism already has an issue with prioritizing stakeholder value over all else—and Big Tech is no different.
Then there’s the mounting political pressure (which impacts everything). Big Tech leaders have shown a willingness to fall in line with Washington’s leadership to avoid regulation, and maybe get favorable court settlements.
Billionaire owners
At the risk of scapegoating a few select people, a healthy amount of the blame for these ills lies at the feet of the few billionaire founders of these tech companies: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, just to name a few.
They all started out wanting to be the next Steve Jobs—visionaries who could change the world with lofty dreams and unique tech. Instead, they ended up being the abusive and power-hungry version of Jobs—grabbing power where they could and clinging to it for dear life.
Being eccentric and wanting to go to Mars was cute when it wasn’t bankrupting our economy. Musk’s hard dive into politics in 2024 is a startling reminder of how powerful this small cabal is and how much damage they could do if they choose to. We can believe the best of them, but we should also be prepared that their goodwill only extends so far.
Even worse are the tech founders who become overly power hungry in a desperate attempt to become billionaires. Think about the controversies surrounding Uber founder, Travis Kalanick. Or the criminal fall from grace of Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes. Same with the epic collapse of WeWork, led by cultish-leader Adam Neumann.
Less well known was the 2024 power struggle within the WordPress community when founder Matt Mullenweg tried to extort a website hosting company for money. Silicon Valley has built a culture around the genius founder and encouraged these strong-willed individuals to pursue their singular vision at all costs.
Tech journalist Kara Swisher recently published her memoir, Burn Book, about her decades of experience covering Silicon Valley. In the book, she highlights encounters with just about every notable tech founder and how they’ve changed over the years—primarily as a result of more money and power.
Environmental impact
Digital technologies have far more negative environmental impact than most people realize. We think of the internet as being “in the cloud,” so there are no negative outcomes when we visit a website or send an email. But the data centers that power the internet account for 2-3% of the world’s CO2 emissions.
Some of these companies have acknowledged their role in this impact, but it’s not yet clear if they’re doing enough to offset their massive carbon footprint. Part of this is also making users more aware of this issue. The other part is ensuring that Big Tech companies are held responsible for the lofty eco-friendly goals they set.
Not to mention, this carbon output is going to increase even more as cryptocurrency and LLM usage increase. These popular new technologies require even greater output from data centers and are already having an impact on local communities.
Where pop culture highlights these issues
One of the most underrated television shows this century is HBO’s Silicon Valley. Created by the brilliant Mike Judge, the comedy show ran from 2014-19, featuring technology companies like Pied Piper and Hooli. The show won five consecutive Emmy awards and was called one of the best tech shows, as well as one of the most accurate. Even a decade later, it’s still eerily accurate.
Image Credit: Presleyson Lima
More recently, HBO released another original satire about the tech industry—this one a film called Mountainhead. The movie centers around four tech billionaire friends on an exclusive retreat together while the world falls apart because of their creations.
In many ways, these pop culture comedies do a better job portraying and criticizing the impact of these technology companies than reality ever could.
What We Can Do to Improve Technology Capitalism
These days, I still admire technology companies—it’s just an entirely new list: Signal, Proton, Fathom, and Sparktoro, to name a few. They’re taking a decidedly different approach to business. And I believe they’re much more sustainable and user-friendly as a result.
Change the business model
Surveillance capitalism isn’t the answer. People who know enough don’t want their data harvested. We’re growing tired of advertising-based models. Thankfully, there are a few examples of tech companies offering alternative solutions.
Proton is a privacy-focused workspace that offers email, calendar, and drive services similar to Google. Unlike Google’s ad-heavy focus, Proton earns most of their revenue from subscriptions. Scaling a paying customer base takes more time, but it’s a healthier form of business.
Then there’s Signal—the industry standard for encrypted messaging (but not if you use a hijacked version to plan national security). They’re more secure than problematic Telegram and don’t have ads like Meta’s WhatsApp (which by the way, runs on Signal’s open-source protocol).
Despite being that valuable, Signal is a nonprofit; it operates entirely on donations. Just like Wikipedia, they count on small gifts from a dedicated fan base to keep them running. This way, they’re not accountable to the public good—not politicians or shareholders. Similarly, Mozilla (the company behind the Firefox browser) creates digital products to make the internet a safer place.
Celebrating Zebras not Unicorns
Unicorns are the often-sought-after goal for start-up founders: a billion-dollar valuation and a lucrative exit. However, creating a culture of unicorns is largely what has killed Silicon Valley’s soul. The ethos has become one of quick growth at all costs and over-leveraged investors.
That’s why there’s a growing movement away from unicorns and towards zebras. It’s a beautiful and apt metaphor for how to shape better businesses.
Unicorns see explosive growth; zebras want sustainable growth.
Unicorns aim to dominate the competition to create a zero-sum monopoly; zebras seek cooperation to build a win-win plurality.
Unicorns benefit a few individuals; zebras benefit the general public.
Unicorns focus on the quantity of user acquisition; zebras aim for quality user success.
Unicorns get users to pay with their attention; zebras ask people to pay for value.
Most importantly, unicorns are a myth; they’re not real. Zebras are very much real—and their value is in their uniqueness, not fanciful dreams.
Return agency to people
Plenty of social media users have grown tired of ever-changing algorithms that push trendy influencer content, rather than posts from people you know. Algorithm fatigue is real.
The Fediverse offers an alternative to Big Social’s walled gardens. This open-source network of platforms returns power to people. On platforms like Bluesky, you can choose your own algorithm or just see posts chronologically. This also means you can see the content you want and share external links without fear.
Follow reasonable regulations
Big Tech’s recent wayward ramblings are in part the fault of the U.S. government—specifically, their unwillingness to regulate these companies. Perhaps that’s because they don’t want to stifle growth, or maybe it’s because most elected officials don’t sufficiently understand technology.
Most of the chatter about regulation so far has come from the courts, not Congress, which has shown major hesitancy to introduce new legislation. In fact, most of the industry’s law comes from decades ago, like the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and the Americans with Disabilities Act from 1990.
A more recent example of legislation is the EU’s GDPR, passed in 2016. This sweeping legislation gave significant data privacy to Europe’s citizens. It certainly puts more burden on digital companies, but it also offers reasonable protections for real people. The GDPR might not be the exact right model for the U.S., but it’s a decent starting point, and better than nothing.
Take personal action
Most of this change needs to happen within the tech companies and our government. However, individuals aren’t entirely powerless in this fight for better technology and better capitalism.
One of the biggest moves I’ve made recently is doing my best to stop using products from Big Tech. Just the practice of trying this shows how deeply we rely on these companies daily. I’ve also started trying to use simple dumb devices when possible, like with my writing. I’ve also begun using several privacy-focused tools to take back control of my data.
This clearly is less convenient than using the Big Tech products; the tradeoff is much better personal privacy and agency. It takes intentionality and care to avoid them. However, it also sends a small but strong message that we have a choice and don’t have to bow to their every whim.
What Comes Next?
I haven’t even mentioned AI yet. LLMs and AI slop take all of these issues to another level. Big Tech companies already have most of the control over AI models. As these tools continue to gain importance, this further solidifies the influence of companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. This also means it’s more important than before to hold them accountable.
Let’s educate ourselves on the problems. Let’s be brave enough to enact the solutions. Let’s stand up for our personal agency. Let’s demand better from these companies. Let’s make the change to better models of technology and capitalism.
Fix Capitalism. Fix the American Dream.
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