When the Internet was young, there was nothing like the AI that has taken over like it is today. Now it is implemented into daily life with full transparency and perhaps unbridled consumption. But crypto, NFTs and microtransactions have nearly become part of modern human life. Monetization has become more important than democratization. Democratization exists for those who have the power — and the money perhaps most importantly — to execute their wishes. Elon Musk, the head of X, is demonstrating such power where his ideal for democratization only exists in his sphere of influence. And we haven’t even breached upon data mining as a monetization device yet. Each keystroke, each swipe, every financial transaction that one performs every day is compounded into data and sold to legitimate companies as well as on the dark web. Even Strava has heatmaps — and video games, such as Call of Duty and various multiplayer games (in e-sports) collect their own heatmaps. Again, some of it is for application and game improvements, but some not so much. Data breaches and hacks are occurring more often, demonstrating the exposure of the data and the financial gain there is. We are indeed in a virtual present where we are nothing but bits of data to be sold to the highest bidder.

Do you thin that we are in a disparate state? What do you think we may do to escape from it? Please feel free to comment below.