Entitlement? Spoiled Brats? Or Just Progress? (original) (raw)

from the you-cannot-deny-what-technology-allows dept

A few people have pointed to Charlie Brooker’s piece in which he suggests that people are so accustomed to “free” things online that they’ve become spoiled brats and feel “entitled” to things for free. This is hardly a new meme. We’ve been hearing it for over a decade in the debates over technology and how it disrupts business models by driving the price of things towards (or all the way to) free. But is it really entitlement? Or is it just a recognition of how progress works and the economics behind it?

I don’t think people are complaining because they feel entitled, so much as they recognize the power of technology to provide these sorts of things and recognize that what technology allows cannot and will not be undone. I don’t think that’s about being “spoiled.” I think it’s about recognizing progress. Is it “spoiled” to use a telephone or email to communicate? Is it “spoiled” to travel by a car or airplane? Or is it just the march of progress that enabled these things, and which people are quite happy about using because it makes their lives better?

If anything, it seems like the sense of “entitlement” and the feelings of being “spoiled” is coming from those who wish to hold back progress, and to keep things the way they were in the past, rather than embracing what the technology and progress have enabled.

Filed Under: entitlement, innovation, progress