The Lack of Digital Diversity
October 27, 2015
Tech companies and their products run our lives. Companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have made it impossible to function in developed nations without them. They have taken over everything from communication to how we entertain ourselves. While these companies offer a variety of different products and services, they are more similar than different. The Verge explains that “Apple, Google, And Microsoft Are All Solving The Same Problem.”
Google, Apple, and Microsoft are offering similar services and products in their present options with zero to little diversity among them. For example, there are the personal assistants Cortana vs. Google Now vs. Siri, options for entertainment in the car like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and seamless accessibility across devices with Chrome browser, Continuity, and Continuum. There are more comparisons between the three tech giants and their business plans for the future, but it is not only them. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are starting to resemble each other more too.
Technology companies have borrowed from each and have had healthy competition for years spurring more innovation, but these companies are operating on such similar principles that it is stifling creativity and startups are taking more risks:
“Without the dual pressures of both the consumer and the stock market, and without a historic reputation to uphold, small startups are now the best engine for generating truly new and groundbreaking innovations. Uber and Airbnb are fundamentally altering the economics of renting things, while hardware designers like Pebble and Oculus are inventing cool new technology that isn’t bound to any particular company’s ecosystem. Startups can see a broader range of problems to address because they don’t have to wear the same economic blinkers as established, monolithic companies.”
The article ends on positive thoughts, however. The present is beating along at a consistent pace, but in order to have more diversity companies should not be copying each other on every little item. Tech companies should borrow ideas from the future to create more original ideas.
Whitney Grace, October 27, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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