I've long talked about public service IT procurement (globally but esp in NZ) with derision, especially towards the 'priorities and values' of the decision makers. I've been saying they have made mostly very bad decisions for decades & I believe the constant stream of media we hear about bungled implementations, budget blowouts, agency heads misleading Ministers, and the generally woeful state of pub-serv tech supports my assertions. I think I understand what the decision makers got wrong. 1/n
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@artnacrea I know you've seen how a lot of this sausage is made, so you're very kind, thank you sir. I recall fondly your lilting contributions to NineToNoon's tech slot back in more optimistic times!
Hear me out: the problem is that public servants (and in fact most people) don't view capitalism as a conspiracy. They don't view corporations as its totally committed agents. They believe that one corporation can credibly assess the value of work that another corporation proposes to gov't - e.g. a 'feasibility study' or a 'ROI report' or 'cost-benefit analysis' provided by one of the 'Big Four'. You'd think they're 'neutral' or maybe on the gov't's side, if the gov't is paying them, right? 2/n
Nope. The Big Four are looking at global revenue streams. Their biggest customers are probably gov'ts... but their biggest sources of business are, in the IT space, Big Tech. So it's in their interest to always 'put their finger on the scale' to ensure Big Tech wins any procurement process... because it brings them the most new business. It's a mutual back slapping exercise. It's pretty much out in the open, but relies on 'low level' lack of ethics across lots of corporations. 🤔 Plausible?
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Of course! KPIs must be fulfilled. Shareholder value doesn't maximise itself! If it doesn't get you arrested, it's 'good practise' in the dog-eat-dog mega multinational melee. So all the 'adjacent' IT industries, like the IT media, swan over the already mass marketed products of Big Tech, gushing over the new Gen AI release of Windows (now w/ 5 copilots! Yay) 🙄 or whatever Big Tech have vomited up now and desperately want to flog to the largely uninformed market. So the question is...
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Where do public service decision makers gain the knowledge and insight they use to make procurement decisions? Few of them are actual IT practitioners. I'm sure most are quite dedicated to their roles & responsibilities though. So they read what they think is relevant. They go to conferences, *all* sponsored by Big Tech. They ask the Big Four. They ask Big Tech affiliate Gartner what's important. In short they develop an entirely seamless, rosy view of the world, with great swag & muffins.
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That's 100% skewed in a pro-capital direction. It - at best - damns with faint praise anything that doesn't have 'big capital' behind it. Because how're Big Tech or the Big Four or the IT Media supposed to make money off of it? It's in their *every* commercial interest to stifle it and stick to the gravy train. Here in NZ, we see it *every Thursday* on RNZ 9toNoon's 'tech segment' (sorry @billbennett) - Big Tech is news, because it's all that people think of when they think of tech. But...
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@lightweight Much as it pains me to say this, one reason Big Tech is news is because that is what readers click on.
It used to be all about editorial judgement and experience, but today's online media (and more to the point online advertising) is all about eyeballs. We now know what readers want to read. We no longer have the luxury of choosing the stories we think they should be seeing.
There will be exceptions, but in general, the ratio of reader interest in, say, stories goings on at a big tech firm and something about open source is an order of magnitude or greater.
@billbennett
> one reason Big Tech is news is because that is what readers click on
Fair point. But that doesn't require tech reporters to cover the DataFarmers uncritically, or sing the praises of 'products' and 'services' that are often profoundly anti-human. Also, information about more ethical replacements can be folded into articles about what needs replacing, 'truth sandwich' style. With relevant quotes from 'Big Tech' critics (and not just the celebrity ones).
@strypey @lightweight It's complicated, but not in the way you might think.
This discussion would be best in the pub. Or do you think there would be many takers if I were to give, say, a 20-minute chat and then moderate a discussion about this on a non-scary, non-surveillance-capitalism videoconference service?
@lightweight This whole thread is worth a read. Thanks!