I found the video “The Last Kilometer, The Last Chance” incredibly insightful, especially considering it was filmed in 2016 but so accurately anticipates the technological landscape of 2024/2025. It predicts the control, addiction, and monetization that data and technology now exert over people’s lives. While watching, this raised a crucial question: how do we reconcile the global expansion of internet access—often seen as a tool for educational and economic empowerment—with the growing evidence that this expansion primarily fuels corporate and state surveillance?

While free software offers an alternative, many people—despite the simplicity of the switch—remain reluctant to make the change. The root of this reluctance is the poison of convenience. Even when confronted with the realities of data collection, location tracking, and constant privacy breaches, people continue to use iPhones, MacBooks, and other “smart” devices. Why? Because it’s convenient.

As Professor Moglen explains in the video, we missed the opportunity to build the internet we wanted: one that fosters individual agency and protects privacy. Instead, we are left grappling with an internet we do not want—one that treats users as subjects for behavioral experiments, continuously tracked and manipulated by algorithms.

Given the stranglehold that convenience has on society, starting at a young age, can technological development ever remain neutral? Or does it inevitably reflect the interests of those in control? Ultimately, are we complicit in the very systems we seek to resist?

-- ZoieGeronimi - 25 Sep 2024

I have a few thoughts after reading your post.

(1) I’m curious whether convenience is inherently a poison. It’s fair to say that convenience often sways people to make choices that make them worse off in the long run, however, I think that an outright labeling of convenience as a negative might actually be analytically harmful to us going forward. Humanity has always sought to create more convenient ways to achieve their goals. Perhaps what we actually want are ways to achieve convenience in our lives in healthy ways. I think framing it like this helps us more readily appreciate that the target of the resistance you discuss shouldn’t be the Internet, but rather the coercive and deceptive practices employed by those who provide services via the Internet.

(2) What form do you think this resistance should take? What would that look like and how could we make it effective?

(3) I think it is a clearly apparent truth that we are, in large part, complicit in the very systems that some seek to resist. I’m sure there is value in knowing this, but I wonder what exactly it provides us. But let’s say that everybody is aware that we are, in fact, partially culpable in the current state of affairs, how do we teach current and future generations the value of “resisting” these technologies?

-- BenMingov - 30 Sep 2024

Hello Ben!

Thank you for taking the time to write out some of your thoughts! I can agree that labeling convenience as a “poison” may have been too strong. As you pointed out, convenience has historically driven societal progress, enabling innovation and improved quality of life. However, while convenience has the potential to drive human progress, I think it's incredibly important to note that it has also paved the way for an unprecedented level of surveillance and control, which has become deeply invasive in the digital age. It wasn’t convenience alone that brought us to this point, but rather the way it has been weaponized to fuel invasive surveillance. That’s why I view it as such a dangerous force.

As for what resistance might look like, I believe education, particularly starting at a young age, could play an important role. However, education alone may not be sufficient. In my own experience, even when I try to explain the dangers of this technology to people around me, it's often not enough to convince them to change their habits. Many remain too dependent on the convenience they’ve become accustomed to, and in most cases, outright addicted to.

That’s why I think introducing technology literacy early in life—teaching kids how to build their own systems and understand the basics of computing—could be a powerful form of resistance. If young people learn not just to use technology but also to question and control it, they may be more likely to reject the systems of surveillance that accompany modern convenience. Before this class, despite my background in computer science, I didn’t fully grasp how easy (and interesting!) it could be to work on a clean-slate computer—one that doesn’t track my activity or serve me personalized ads. I think that if this information was more accessible, this could make real change.

Finally, I think this is an incredibly difficult question to answer, and frankly it's one that I'm still trying to figure out myself! Many people don’t want to engage with the uncomfortable realities of privacy, surveillance, and data collection. This often leads to an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, which can be dangerous. When these issues are discussed, people tend to either shrug it off because they're too reliant on the convenience or actively avoid the conversation because they don’t want to confront it.

Right now, I believe that in order to teach future generations the value of resisting invasive technologies, we need to prioritize digital literacy, focusing on privacy and the ethical implications of technology. By offering accessible alternatives and practical tools for safeguarding privacy, we can make resistance both realistic and meaningful.

-- ZoieGeronimi - 02 Oct 2024

The more I read “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” the less sure I am that the technological advancements of the last fifteen to twenty years have been convenient—at least if one defines convenience as “making life easier.” To be sure, the rise of email, instant messaging, and social media has allowed us to communicate with each other more quickly and across a broader geographical range than ever before, but as a consequence, we have all begun to expect each other to be “online” all the time. Because modern communication devices allow us to send and reply to messages at virtually any time and in virtually any place, we now find it inexcusable that someone could choose to turn said device off for a few hours. This level of availability was impossible in the age of the corded phone because it would be infeasible to never leave one’s home or place of work. The cellphone, inversely, allows us to be “at home” or “at work” no matter where we physically happen to be. In my view, this inability to truly be alone is inconvenient.

Another inconvenient—and even more horrifying—aspect of modern technology is the inability to be forgotten, or to have our private lives truly remain private. Zuboff discusses this extensively. Prior to the Internet age, one could simply throw away an embarrassing photo or burn a salacious letter. Now, hackers, revenge-seekers, and garden variety creeps can surreptitiously record and save our most intimate or humiliating moments and upload them to websites, where they are accessible to anyone with WiFi? until the end of time. American law, both at the state and federal level, has been woefully slow to combat this. “Revenge pornography” and, more recently, AI-generated nude images are not criminalized in every state, nor are they criminalized at the federal level. Meanwhile, victims around the country are losing their jobs, being ostracized by their community, and, in some cases, committing suicide.

Yes, social media and smartphone apps have given us the freedom to cheaply communicate with people overseas, set alarms and calendar reminders all in one place, and write checks without needing a pen, but they also subjugate us all by existing within a legal libertarian hellscape in which they operate virtually free from regulation or accountability.

-- LauraBane - 03 Oct 2024

Hi Laura!

I agree with your sentiment that the convenience offered by modern technology has come with significant trade-offs, particularly in how we live and interact. However, I would take it a step further and argue that not all technological advancements have been made with convenience or the goal of improving our lives in mind. Many innovations, especially in the age of surveillance capitalism, seem to be driven by profit and control, rather than making things genuinely easier or better for society.

Take, for instance, the pervasive use of social media and online platforms. On the surface, they provide convenience—we can shop, date, and socialize from anywhere at any time. But underneath, this convenience feeds into something more insidious: an addiction to constant engagement. I think the convenience of technology is not only a reason people embrace these platforms, but it's also why they struggle to let them go, even when they're aware of the harms. The ability to communicate instantly, get endless streams of content, and access services with a click creates a dangerous loop of dependency. We become addicted to that instant gratification, and companies exploit that by keeping us locked into their ecosystems.

What makes this more alarming is how companies use the guise of convenience to strip away privacy. They collect and commodify our data without our explicit consent, making surveillance a key aspect of how these platforms function. As you mentioned, Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism makes it clear that this isn’t about making our lives easier—it’s about making our behavior predictable and profitable.

-- ZoieGeronimi - 06 Oct 2024

Hi Zoie,

I loved your point on the "guise of convenience," which made me think of the epigraph framing the first chapter of Zuboff's book:

"I saw him crying, shedding floods of tears upon Calypso’s island, in her chambers. She traps him there; he cannot go back home." —HOMER, THE ODYSSEY

For seven years, Odysseus effectively learns to love Calypso, but it is a malicious love where the hero's journey home to Penelope is displaced. In terms of targeted ads, how many times is our journey online similarly detained? When it comes to convenience, if we understand the word etymologically, we should ascribe "convenience" to something that "comes with" us on our journey. But ironically, I suspect that most of the users of Meta/Instagram or Alphabet/YouTube hardly realize that they are not the ones charting their own path.

As Zuboff puts it when discussing the perils of Google Home: "There was a time when you searched Google, but now Google searches you." In some ways, that's a new phenomenon, but in other ways, it's a tale as old as time (or at least Greek epic)!

-- MichaelMacKay - 09 Oct 2024