The internet’s egalitarian founding promise hardened into corporate libertarianism

Evidence

But the lava of this at once anti-authoritarian and egalitarian potential, which was still discernible in the Californian founding spirit of the early years, soon solidified in Silicon Valley into the libertarian grimace of world-dominating digital corporations. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 34

Categorization

• CANDY: The ‘lava… solidifying into a libertarian grimace’ image is a memorable, shareable encapsulation of Silicon Valley’s arc.
• XREF: Echoes the critique of Californian ideology as tech-libertarianism in studies of platform capitalism. — connects to: The internet functions as a factory producing the self as commodity — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 18; Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity; Early internet success no longer required techno-utopian ideals or DIY ethos — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 173 (+15 more)

Related

• Silicon Valley’s ideology fuses technological determinism with libertarian individualism. (similarity 0.80)
• The internet shattered capitalism’s evolutionary fitness rather than defeating or entrenching it (similarity 0.79)
• Neoliberal privatization decisions shaped the corporate-controlled internet (similarity 0.79)
• Early internet success no longer required techno-utopian ideals or DIY ethos (similarity 0.78)
• Silicon Valley ideology fused free-market libertarianism with New Left anti-hierarchy (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity #expands (0.85)
• The internet functions as a factory producing the self as commodity #expands (0.82) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 18
• Mainstream newcomers adopted internet subversion without its utopian ideology #corroborates (0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 170
• Early internet success no longer required techno-utopian ideals or DIY ethos #complicates (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 173
• Social media promotes an ideal of privatizing the self into corporate form #exemplifies (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 354
• The tech industry reintroduced scarcity into the internet’s supposedly abundant space #expands (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 723
• Modern freedom rests on an unacknowledged capitalist metaphysic #expands (0.75)
• The internet’s promise of niche escape collapsed into a mass culture of short-form content #exemplifies (0.74) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 522