“I suspected that regulation would be the death of the current market’s technology generals,” he said, turning to his table, unrolling a map. “I was right.”
"We can already see the writing on the wall and are highly confident this becomes obvious to the masses by the end of 3Q, or 4Q at the latest. This suggests more tough times for equity investors, but we doubt it will be that easy as market tops tend to be particularly exhausting."
"Corporations such as Facebook and others will continue to outdo the state in accruing massive amounts of personal data on individuals, particularly in the West... in an effort to reshape people’s allegiances... As states perceive corporations as potential threats to their power, they will take action to keep such companies at bay."
"When they cancel Boeing orders, and put the pressure on US Soya Exports – that’s when yesterday’s 3% stock market wobble becomes some more centrifugal."
“Facebook has too much power over America’s communications infrastructure. And Facebook’s failure to manage that power responsibly ... is a direct threat to American democracy, and the government must act now..."
Even before the most recent scandal, many people had started questioning whether the world’s largest social network might have gotten out of control...
"What’s genius when it helps Obama, is suddenly a threat to Democracy when Trump wins. The truth is, it was dangerous and unethical before and it’s dangerous and unethical now..."
"Most people are too lazy to think critically and, thus, propaganda becomes hypnosis. It’s how lies travel the world as the truth ties its shoes. It is why, in America today, citizens are labeled as Deplorables and the children of illegal immigrants are called Dreamers. It’s how guns are guilty..."
"We’ve been there before, in the crash of the dot-com bubble of 2000, when we believed that downloading pop music and porn would drive the economy of the future. We’ve done it again... Internet community and Artificial Intelligence were the two blasts of hot air that inflated the bubble."
Let's imagine a model in which the marketers of data distribute some of their immense profits to the users who created and thus "own" the data being sold for a premium.
"There was nothing that could be said to appease the most vocal critics, mainstream backlash will persist as Cambridge Analytica remains in the headlines, and we would expect some impact to near-term platform usage" - BofA