“The sheer size of an outfit, the raw scope of its ambitions,
and the very nature of what they do make a path from Good Guy to
Bad Guy seem all but inevitable. When you’re that successful, it’s
all too easy to eventually become too smart, or powerful, or just
plain too big for your own good.“It sounds like a handy explanation, doesn’t it? But the problem
is, it explains little. For one, it’s too deterministic: it implies
that anyone who shoots for the stars is going to land in the gutter
at least once. It absolves Google and Apple — and anyone else who
might be named in the same breath — of any real responsibility for
what they do.“There are few entities that wield as much power as they do.
Google and Apple are, to some degree, aware of that. But in my eyes
they’re not veering toward “bad guy” status merely because they’re
big. It’s also because they’re not compensating enough for their
overweening power. For too long, both of them have not thoroughly
examined the consequences of their actions. The results raise
questions in various quarters, including among some of their
biggest fans.”