Living in the Past

Recently I was struck by a similarity in business and music while listening to the radio:

On Monday I heard a report on "Marketplace," the American Public Media program, about the debate over Facebook's privacy policy. The debate in the senate over whether you should have to 'opt-in' instead of being given the (debateably) difficult task of choosing to 'opt-out' seems like a potent issue with points on either side.

One of the pros cited for allowing Facebook's database to be available to sites was that we could potentially be lead to products and services that we might enjoy based on our previous likes and dislikes (if Facebook ever heads the calls for a dislike button). To my way of thinking this is perhaps the worst reason to allow Facebook's data to be broadcast across the web, and for a number of reasons:

First, our consumerism-to-the-max attitude is what got us into the recession we are now just beginning to escape. Sure, it leads to strong buying and earnings for companies, but what we need is a more efficient, global system, not one that requires us to spend more. If we choose the latter then what are we left with?

Second, advertising has not become responsible or sophisticated enough in a Web-3 kind of way that it would be anything short of a hindrance, constantly miscalculating our wants and needs - perhaps confusing the two (as we do on occasion)?

Now, even supposing these first two points are wrong, there is a third issue that overshadows them both: the social isolation and dependence on the familiar that things like Facebook-information-sharing enables and encourages is such that it limits not only ourselves but our economy.

As a consumer base we have become more superlative than innovative. The reliance on the familiar, the need for a trusted brand name or piece of jargon merely inhibits, in an ever-increasing way, the ability of the consumer to want and need a product that will push the given market in a new direction. Innovations like Apple's iPhone and Amazon's Kindle are fewer and farther between. Consequently we just want faster and cheaper instead of newer and more imaginative. Good shoppers always lament the scarcity of people who do good research on products through publications like Consumer Reports or the BBB. These avenues aren't pursued merely out of laziness and complacency for the familiar. McShopping anyone? This attitude represents many ideological problems. If we become reliant (ie. we need it more than just enjoy it) on the familiar will we become so much so that progress will actually slow due to our inability to cope or support truly ground-breaking change?

As a contemporary classical musician this feels like a conceptual repeat. For decades music has become more and more of an aphrodisiac, made to soothe and calm, rather than intrigue and stimulate as art is supposed to. As on Facebook, the boundaries between living life and advertising have been blurred. Shouldn't we consider shaking off some of this illusory 'familiarity'? Does a recommendation from Joe in Montana carry more weight than our gut feelings? If so, why? Why can't we trust ourselves anymore, even just to have an adventure and respond to the world, instead of hoping that it responds to us?