Adam Kotsko had a great poll on tech innovations
All seem to have been enabled by plentiful vulture capital money that seeks to monopolize part of the world.
- Illegal cab company – with enough money and backing, local authorities cannot enforce the taxi and employment regulations against a massive company
- Illegal hotel chain – why go to the bother of actually owning a hotel when you can own the booking system and take a large cut of the revenue. Why follow any regulation when you can claim that you are just the booking service?
- Fake money for criminals – the various blockchain technologies were a solution in search of a problem until the non-fungible token idea took off
- Plagiarism machine – automated copy-remix-paste, also known as a stochastic parrot or predictive text on steroids with delusions of grandeur
Missing from list but should have been there
- Weaponized gossip – creating ways to get your ideas out to as many people as possible to create more discord and violence
- Selling personal data for profit – now you can really target your advertisements
- Gigs for all - profits to the corporations, avoid the hassles of minimum wage laws by using poorly paid “contractors”