There are three giants of industry that are shaping and reshaping culture at a maddening pace. Our lives are slowly becoming less differentiated as we all buy the same things, expect the same things, use the same things, prioritize and spend our time in the same ways. Are we using technology on a mass scale for our benefit as consumers or is technology simply allowing these three A’s to benefit by making us a single mass consumer?
THE THREE A’s: Innovators and Culture-Shapers of Today
1. AMAZON: Echo came out of the gates strong and already is spawning a family of products. Amazon Prime Video is bulking up in what looks like an early attempt to gain traction on original content production so it can take on the leader waiting to be toppled, Netflix.
Amazon Prime is becoming another standard in the portfolio of recurring monthly subscriptions people hold due to things like the same-day delivery zone being rolled out. 2-hr delivery in NYC. So crazy we almost don’t believe it Dash button refill ordering thingamajiggies only serve to feed our addiction to everything Amazon.
We’ve already seen the drone delivery testing videos to get our minds dreaming. Basically telling us to get ready for more innovative things to help make life easier, quicker, cheaper from Amazon as we march on in time.
2. ALPHABET: so it finally happened, Google has become the behemoth to the point where they are not happy with just dominating the World Wide Web.
They want to go off-line into things such as self driving cars, solving world health issues, and more.
So say hello to Alphabet – the business vehicle that allows them to become the all encompassing, take over the world monolith, but makes is all ok through the use of a separate corporate structure. But without a negative death star-like image. Even the name they chose, Alphabet, is childish, inviting, and friendly on the surface. By technically separating it all out from the entity known as Google proper, you can’t point to Google anymore and say it is becoming an evil giant taking over the world. Brilliant.
3. APPLE: Apple Watch, bigger screen iPhones, mega screen ipad form factors, a new AppleTV with an open apps platform ready to spawn a new apps cottage industry just like the mobile phone and tablet analogs are just a partial pictures.
Don’t forget the new stores opening without any end in sight, a new model phone mid-year, and did I mention a new music subscription model business that will only take more money out of Apple fan pockets each and every month?
They won’t stop there either. iPhone 7 is just around the corner, don’t forget!
I wonder what risks we are taking as consumers and as an ever-connected culture to be so easily led by so few all together.
The global nature of business has certainly changed how ideas, norms and behavior evolve, spread and differentiate / particularize to a specific populations, countries and continents. THOUGHTS?
