For tech, a new economic environment presents both challenges and opportunities. Many tech businesses will not recover. Crypto, Twitter and Meta’s best days appear to be behind them. Other tech businesses, probably including Amazon and Apple, will recover, but perhaps more slowly than they would like.
Some new opportunities will emerge. Enterprises that are restructuring manufacturing and supply chains will need technology. As workers leverage their newfound bargaining power to demand a greater share of the returns, demand for tech-based automation will likely increase. And as consumers adjust to new economic realities, they will stand to benefit from a range of applications and services that do not exist today.
While it may be too much to ask, policymakers should seize this moment to steer the tech industry in more desirable directions. For years, the industry—particularly the social-media platforms—has weakened democracy, undermined public health and jeopardized public safety. To the extent that policymakers have done anything to rein in the industry, they have focused on privacy and competition—efforts that have accomplished too little and come too late.
The focus of policymakers and regulators should shift from symptoms to root causes: namely, the industry’s culture, business models and structure. The culture of the industry is hyper-focused on speed, scale and profits, without regard for consumer safety. Too many products—including major internet platforms, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, smart devices, crypto, deep fakes and facial recognition—are simply unsafe. There are no rules requiring tech companies to put consumer safety first; worse, the economic incentives encourage exactly the opposite kind of behavior.
Similarly, the “surveillance capitalism” business model—which uses big data and behavioral economics to manipulate behavior—is an assault on human autonomy analogous to child labor. And it is an assault that has spread from internet platforms to many other industries, including health care, transportation and financial services.
Finally, the concentration of economic power in the tech industry prevents new ideas and business models from coming to market. With today’s macroeconomic disruption, policymakers have an opportunity to make up for years of laissez-faire policies. Tech companies should be forced to demonstrate safety as a condition of market access. Surveillance capitalism should be banned. Monopolistic business practices must be outlawed, and monopolies broken up.
Protecting democracy, public health and public safety is good politics. It also happens to be the right thing to do. There will never be a better time.
Roger McNamee is a co-founder of Elevation Partners and an early investor in Facebook, Google and Amazon.