Insurgents vs Incumbents
The startup world is about insurgents. A person or a few people with an idea. And they drop everything and go for it. They are going up against the incumbents and that doesn't just mean the big companies that occupy the market position they want. That means all the people, institutions, and organizations that are in cahoots with the big companies.
This is the framework through which we see the world. And this is the framework through which we would like others to see the world.
It is not the least bit surprising to me that Facebook supports CISPA. Facebook was once an insurgent. But now they are an incumbent. And we can expect them to be supportive of the ultimate incumbent, our government, particularly when it comes to sharing data on all of us with them.
I saw this this on HYV's Tumblr this morning:
Waiting to see if all the VC’s will call for a boycott of Facebook over CISPA like they did content creators on SOPA/PIPA. Or just act like it’s different suddenly.
If there were a boycott of Facebook over this CISPA thing, I'd gladly participate in it. I just don't know if people care enough about this issue to get appropriately annoyed about it. The impact of PIPA/SOPA on the Internet user was easier to understand. Cybersecurity and privacy and data ownership and sharing is much more complicated to understand.
Make no mistake, the incumbents have each others' back. But the Internet users have the insurgents' back. So when the Internet users care enough, the insurgents will win. That's what happened with PIPA/SOPA. It will be interesting to see if it will happen again with CISPA.
