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DL 199

It Goes On

Published: 2019-05-25 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 199. It goes on.

Hi all, welcome to Digitally Literate. My name is Ian O'Byrne. I research, teach, & write about technology in our lives. I try to synthesize what happened this week in tech...so you can be the expert as well.

I started this newsletter several years ago with the intention of curating during the week and distilling this down into an easy-to-read source for you to quickly consume. My goal was to provide the information & details you need to be digitally literate. I hope you enjoy...and thank you for reading.

This week I posted the following things elsewhere online:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

I'm super excited about the possibilities of 3D printing in our lives. In fact, next week I'll be helping a group of elementary students as they print out their own 3D art pieces. The problem is that 3D printing always has questions about feasibility on a large scale.

That was until I watched this video from Unbox Therapy about a new Adidas sneaker and the "Futurecraft 4D" printing process used to create the sole. Imagine being able to scan your sole with your mobile device, and have a custom-fit shoe printed up for you.

The Futurecraft demonstration answers 3D printing's persistent "but does it scale?" question. Previous examples remained prototypes, one-offs, proof-of-concept demonstrations. Adidas producing actual consumer products through additive manufacturing crosses from novelty to industry transformation. The custom-fit possibility—scanning your unique foot shape, printing your unique sole—represents manufacturing paradigm shift: from mass production (one design fits millions) to mass customization (millions of unique designs). The educational connection matters too: elementary students printing art pieces today internalize that objects can be designed and produced individually, not just purchased from stores. This generation will expect personalization at scale.

📚 Read

Social media giant Facebook is reportedly planning to announce its cryptocurrency later this month. Facebook also indicated they could even allow employees working on the project to accept payment in the cryptocurrency, which is said to be a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.

According to The Information (via CNBC), the company will let users trade, store, and exchange its cryptocurrency for fiat currency through Facebook's apps, including messaging platforms Messenger and WhatsApp.

Facebook has been moving from scandal to scandal over the last couple of years. Cryptocurrencies and alt-coins are built on foundations of trust. It will be interesting to see if this initiative takes off.

Facebook entering cryptocurrency creates profound irony: crypto emerged partly to escape institutional control, yet here's the world's largest social platform seeking to become global financial infrastructure. The stablecoin approach (pegged to dollar) avoids Bitcoin's volatility while enabling Facebook payments across Messenger and WhatsApp's billions of users. The trust problem is real—cryptocurrency adoption requires believing the issuer will maintain peg and honor redemptions. Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandals, privacy violations, and election manipulation make it perhaps the least trusted company to ask for financial trust. Yet network effects may override concerns: if two billion people can suddenly pay each other instantly across borders, convenience may trump principle.

Facebook Shareholders Try to Limit Zuckerberg's Power

Facebook is a publicly traded company, of which Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg owns a majority of the stock. This helps him control the actions of the company...and the other platforms owned by Facebook.

It appears that the board of investors has had enough, and tried to make some changes and weaken the power of Mark Zuckerberg. Shareholders are furious at the way Zuckerberg has handled a series of Facebook scandals, including election interference on the social network in 2016 and the giant Cambridge Analytica data breach last year. They think the company would benefit from an independent chairman holding Zuckerberg and his top team accountable.

The investment options at Facebook are structured so Zuckerberg owns a majority of the votes, and will always control the destiny of the company. This news makes the earlier story about Facebook launching their own coin even more interesting.

The dual-class stock structure reveals corporate governance's limits. Facebook went public while ensuring Zuckerberg maintained voting control—investors knowingly bought shares without proportional voice. Now those investors regret the bargain: scandal after scandal, billions in fines, democratic damage, yet the founder remains unaccountable. The independent chairman proposal would create oversight, but can't pass because the person who would be overseen controls the votes. The cryptocurrency connection: Zuckerberg can unilaterally decide Facebook becomes global financial infrastructure. No board approval needed, no shareholder vote required. This concentration of power over communication and potentially financial infrastructure in one unaccountable individual should concern everyone.

Apple held their yearly developer's conference this week in San Jose, California. They introduced a ton of new product news, including an awesome Mac Pro and Pro XDR display, iOS 13, iPadOS, new Apple Watch features and more.

The products look interesting to me. The Mac Pro looks awesome, but wayyy out of my budget. iPadOS looks cool as well, but I never end up using an iPad in the ways that they describe.

I'm most intrigued by the news about Apple killing off iTunes, and their plans to have you sign in with Apple. There is no way that I'm using the Apple authentication process. They indicate that this is a safer alternative to a social sign-on with Facebook, Google, or Twitter. The difference is that it is their system, and is tied to Face ID. No thanks.

The Sign in with Apple skepticism deserves unpacking. Apple positions it as privacy-protective alternative to Facebook/Google authentication—and it genuinely offers improvements like email hiding and reduced tracking. But it's still centralized authentication controlled by one company, now tied to biometric Face ID data. The privacy benefits require trusting Apple more than trusting Facebook, which many people do, but institutional trust in any corporation seems misplaced given how institutions change over time. iTunes dying marks end of era—the application that made Apple's digital transformation possible, now unbundled into separate apps. The $6000 Mac Pro and $5000 display targeting professional market reveals Apple's strategy: premium margins from those who need power, while mainstream customers use iPads and iPhones.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are facing unprecedented scrutiny in their own backyard. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are preparing antitrust investigations into the companies, and plan to divvy up the work.

Martin Giles indicates that while regulators in the US have taken a big step toward bringing antitrust suits against American tech giants, they face a long road ahead for three reasons:

It will be interesting to see how this proceeds.

Giles identifies the doctrinal obstacles facing antitrust enforcement. The "free services" problem: traditional antitrust focuses on consumer harm measured by price increases, but Google search and Facebook access cost nothing. The "natural monopoly" problem: utilities like electricity or water have infrastructure making competition impractical, but anyone can theoretically build a social network or search engine. The "data dominance" problem: tech companies use accumulated data to improve services, creating advantages competitors can't match without equivalent data. Each obstacle reflects antitrust doctrine designed for industrial-age monopolies—railroad trusts, oil cartels—applied awkwardly to information-age platforms. The resolution may require reconceptualizing harm beyond price (attention extraction, privacy invasion, democratic manipulation) and monopoly beyond infrastructure (network effects, data moats, platform lock-in).

Last week I went on a vacation with the family and friends to Disney World. As always, I was examining the ways in which we socialize and commune in common spaces. Disney has numerous people that are paid to engage with you as you walk through the parks.

This struck a tone with me as I read the Ranjan Roy essay on The Sweetgreen-ification of Society and how technology and customer segmentation have separated us into disparate groups.

While I think about how our devices are forcing us to be social in only digital spaces, check out this video about how/why Disney has gotten to be so expensive.

Roy's "Sweetgreen-ification" thesis identifies how technology enables customer segmentation destroying common spaces. Previously, everyone waited in the same bank line, shopped in the same stores, encountered each other in physical space. Now: premium apps skip lines, subscription services deliver to doors, algorithms route different customers through different experiences. The wealthy never encounter the non-wealthy; each tier experiences different version of the same company. Disney exemplifies both dynamics: expensive enough to exclude many families, while employing "cast members" paid to simulate the spontaneous human interaction that organic public spaces once provided. The forced digital sociality observation is crucial—we "commune" through screens while physical common spaces become either premium experiences or neglected.

🔨 Do

Summer Reading from TED Speakers

If you're wrapping up a school year, taking a vacation, or it's just another week...pick up a new book to capture your imagination and perhaps inspire you.

This list of book recommendations comes from a group of TED speakers and contains guidance for all moods, activities, and tastes.

TED speaker recommendations offer curated entry points into diverse fields—each speaker brings deep expertise and selects books that shaped their thinking. The reading-as-inspiration framing matters: books aren't just information delivery but imagination catalysts, opening possibilities previously unconsidered. The "all moods, activities, and tastes" promise reflects reading's versatility—escape, education, challenge, comfort, all available depending on selection. Summer reading specifically creates space for the longer, deeper engagement that fragmented attention during working seasons prevents.

🤔 Consider

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on." — Robert Frost

Frost's observation on life's continuity connects to this issue's themes of persistence through change. Facebook faces scandals yet launches cryptocurrency. Apple kills iTunes yet introduces new products. Antitrust investigations proceed despite obstacles. Common spaces fragment yet we keep seeking connection. Technology keeps going on—the question is whether we're shaping where it goes.

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