I mean, you can't have advertising be the only official business of the information economy if the information economy is going to take over.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that advertising should not dominate the information economy as it evolves.
Jaron Lanier's quote suggests that as the information economy grows and becomes more integral to our lives, it should not be solely driven by advertising interests. Instead, a more balanced approach that values the true potential of information and innovation is needed, enabling a more beneficial environment for users and creators alike.
In practice
During a conference on digital marketing, one might reference this quote to discuss the future impact of technology on advertising.
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.
Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce every detail of their lives on services like Twitter not to show off, but to avoid the closed door at bedtime, the empty room, the screaming vacuum of an isolated mind.
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day.
When you have a global mush, people lose their identity, they become pseudonyms, they have no investment and no consequence in what they do.
Developing fewer features allows you to conserve development resources and spend more time refining those features that users really need. Fewer features mean fewer things to confuse users, less risk of user errors, less description and documentation, and therefore simpler Help content. Removing any one feature automatically increases the usability of the remaining ones.
We're all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.
Perhaps one day we will have machines that can cope with approximate task descriptions, but in the meantime, we have to be very prissy about how we tell computers to do things.
AR is going to play such an infinite role in our lives that we have to establish clear ground rules respecting everyone's rights. That means open platform and open ecosystems and protections that put user privacy first.
My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers. I only started the company when I realized I could be an engineer forever.
Merging the ability to conduct surveillance that reveals every aspect of a person's life with the ability to conjure up the legal authority to execute that surveillance, and finally, removing any accountable judicial oversight, creates the opportunity for unprecedented influence over our system of government.
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