We’ve long been under glaring misconception that the tech uberlords are the smartest guys in the room. Is it that, or were they simply the first guys in the room? Pay attention:

Big Tech has been flexing its muscles more and more, censoring, deplatforming and demonetizing its users, not exclusively for political or ‘inappropriate’ content, or simply coming up with ‘creative’ ways to bring in more for me, but not for thee – because they can.

We know that, certainly since the Age of Social, the platform formerly known as the information superhighway has become a one-way street, but things are shifting and note to self: the cabal is starting to feel the repercussions.

In mid-February, Australia took a stand against Facebook — and got silenced. “Rather than continue negotiations with Australia regarding paying for the news content circulating on its platform, Facebook decided to pull up stakes. Within hours, the company announced it would “restrict publishers and people in Australia” from sharing or viewing news content. This restriction was also global — Facebook users the world over would now be prohibited from posting links from Australian news publishers.”

A week or so later, Facebook agrees to pay three news publishers in Australia.

That didn’t last long. In fact, then Australia passes law to make Google, Facebook pay for news.

Then Twitter announce(d) paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets. The platform is giving users the ability “to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests. They’re two of the more substantial changes to Twitter in a while, but they also fit snugly into models that have been popular and successful on other social platforms.”

All well and good, but we do know that Twitter, via Periscope, which is going to more or less be folded into the Twitter platform soon, does have a penchant for not paying broadcasters the vigs bestowed on them by their follower. Nor has Twitter announced how much of a vig they’ll be taking.

And why not focus on the wags who comment on the tweets of so-called influencers, and whose comments may draw more likes than the original post?

The now legacy social platforms – Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and even Google re, search, – are missing the forest through the trees.

They may launch all of the popular features that their competitors have – including those within the cabal itself, re Twitter’s launching their own version of FB Groups – and they may well both soon be launching their own versions of Clubhouse. But the only thing that all of this will accomplish is that the more they change, the more they’ll all be the same. You can split the same pie just so many ways and not sure that their walled gardens will be devouring the world for that much longer.

Case in point: enter the Brave browser which, last year alone, more than doubled its user base. And is still growing. Without needing to track you or compromise your privacy and note to self, tech cabal and entrepreneurs out there: users can get paid for using Brave. As do content partners. As ghacks explains, “The browser uses the cryptocurrency Basic Attention Token to earn revenue; this is done by allowing users to opt-in to advertisement and to receive BAT currency in return for doing so. Publishers, website operators, receive their share of the ad revenue as well, and so does the Brave company.”

Brave returns 70% of its ad rev share to users and partners.

An upstart?

Watch and see How the basic attention token can overthrow the $330 billion digital ad industry. And eat the cabal’s lunch.

Big Tech as the smartest guys in the room?

They basically took the Hollywood model of network/studio takes most. Want more users, Big Tech et al? Time to shift away from the Hollywood model, where the stars /influencers are remunerated, and end users pay for their seats or are served ads – but do note that they’re not required to surrender the keys to their homes to watch the tube.

The platforms may be free, but which is the larger base: the stars/influencer or the user? Wouldn’t your audience be much more loyal and engaged if they were incentivized and could monetize their time and attention, rather than being merely commoditized?

You might also ask, even at this late date, while the end user is the product, who precisely is the real customer? (How the CIA made Google. Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—Google is a smokescreen behind which lurks the US military-industrial complex.) Lest we forget, the CIA also funded Facebook, so sure that it doesn’t matter that your privacy is ‘gone,’ so who cares at this point – and that it’s all simply in the name of selling you yet another pair of shoes?

The cabal is bold, pushing once again for ‘Net Neutrality,’ even while dictating what is and what is not permitted on their platforms (no irony here, what, eh?), but they’re no longer the only game in town – and they know it. The audience seems slowly to be leaving the theater, whether by choice or not, and times and paradigms change. New models arise and as we’re all well aware, fortune favors the brave.

Onward and forward