With the election in the rearview mirror, we've seen some major names in tech start sucking up to the new regime. Elon Musk has been kissing Trump's ass for quite a while, largely throwing Tesla under the bus (and it probably won't be an electric one), and it's looking like he's going to have a direct line to the president in some way, shape, or form.

What Changed

They always say that you get more conservative the older you get, but really it's that you get more conservative the richer you get. Big Tech is in a position of power now. They've got a lot of money and are facing a lot of regulatory pressure, which could cost them money. So time to suck up to Trump. I guess.

The Innovation Has Slowed

The tech community has been talking about how these companies have been slowing on their innovation in the pursuit of profits and—well—they're kinda proving that right. Meta has been turning all of their apps into soulless monetization machines; Google tries to suck value out of literally every corner of the internet in multiple flavors be it ads, search, or AI; Apple's latest innovation is "what if your notifications were not only annoying, but also useless"; Tesla is two years away from FSD (and have been since like 2016); IBM has survived literally just selling solutions to their tech debt; and Microsoft helped cause Y2K this year. It's really not looking good.

The Mighty Have Fallen

Google used to be known as the cool place to work, they would show people that they've got ping pong tables and propeller caps. They were the ones who would "do no evil". Facebook were the "move fast and break things" company, more interested in shipping their product than anything else. Now Google's "do no evil" motto is gone and Meta wants to move at a snail's pace on things like fediverse sharing in Threads. These companies are, in the grand scheme of things, shells of what they once were.

Where is the Innovation Now?

Well I would say that it's probably going to end up being in AI. It's going to be an open season with Chevron being overturned, rendering government agencies powerless to regulate these companies. This largely unregulated space helps this kind of innovation flourish, but that comes at a cost when these companies are flipping switches going "this might just be the one that ends the world, we're not entirely sure". This is, of course, entirely reliant on chips being able to keep up (we'll see how that goes).

Some Is Still At Big Tech

But the other thing is: Big Tech still has a lot of innovative people working in it. On a macro-scale, Apple has shifted its product team under operations, leading to products that are built for supply chain efficiency and fitting into particular pricing patterns. On a micro scale, the settings app is now respecting the app icon colors on your home screen, the iPhone is experimenting with more buttons, and Mac minis are getting mini-er.

These companies are made up of people who care, people who want these products to be good, and people who are committed to making that happen. It's only once you get to the very top of these companies that this kind of back-asswards thinking starts to come into play. They are companies made up of people who want to make the world a better place and who truly believe they are doing so. Don't count those people out.

Why is This Happening?

Fear. These companies are scared. That's really it. They have power, they have money, and they see a force that's trying to take it from them. That's really all the conservative agenda is: reacting to fear. We need guns in case someone tries to break into our house, we need the most powerful military in the world in case someone tries to invade us, and we need to force gay men to hide away lest they treat us like we treat women. Homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, fear is in its name. That's all this is. Now that they've made their fortunes, it's time to do whatever they can to hold onto them. It's not about the kids, it's not about the queer community, it's not about immigrants, it's about profits. If you need me, I'll be over on Mastodon.