How did the web become “a hell that is fun, ruled by idiots and thieves?” Blame the smartphone. Suddenly anyone could be online—and they were, everywhere and all the time
By Joanne McNeil.decade the number of people using the internet has leapt from 1.8bn, or a quarter of the world, to 4.1bn, well over half. Internet companies grew with their user bases. Ten years ago Facebook had roughly 2,000 employees; today 45,000 people work for it full-time, mostly in Silicon Valley. Google went from 24,000 staff to 119,000 in the same period.
In her telling, Ms Wiener, a sociology major who had the misfortune to graduate into the global financial crisis, starts her professional career as an assistant to a literary agent in New York. Tired of being privileged yet “downwardly mobile”, she joins a tech startup on the east coast, flubs it, but fails upwards to a better-paid job in San Francisco. Once there she observes first-hand the absurdities and extravagances of the industry.
In New York, Ms Wiener recalls, “I had never considered that there were people behind the internet.” But in San Francisco “it was impossible to forget”. After all, she was one of them. Occasionally she has pangs of conscience, asking a friend, “Do you think I work at a surveillance company?” But such concerns fall by the wayside in a cloud of ecstasy and clean air, as she finds the twin millennial grails of a decent salary and comprehensive health care.
The people behind the internet continued to believe that most users were versions of themselves, “white, male, age 25 to 34, college-educated”. In reality the internet is more diverse, says Ms McNeil, taking in women and users of other ages,folk, ethnic minorities and all combinations thereof. True—but her idea of diversity is itself a narrow one. In fact, in the period she chronicles, the average internet user became poorer, older, less white and less likely to speak English.
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