🔥 🔮 Apple & the megacorps; blockchain blocked; the humanities crisis; the pros of algorithms & ethics of data; esports, coal & robotic hands++ #177

Dept of near future

🍎  The era of mega companies. As Apple passes $1 trillion in market cap, “Apple and Google combined now provide the software for 99% of all smartphones. Facebook and Google take 59 cents of every dollar spent on online advertising in the United States... the so-called labo[u]r share of the economy has been declining in the United States and other rich countries since the 1990s, coinciding with the trend toward corporate concentration.” Bloomberg puts together a lovely photo essay on Apple at a trillion dollars. (See also: Farhad Manjoo on how tech platforms are being forced to overhaul their absolutist positions of non-interference and becoming arbiters of what is and isn’t malignant on their networks. It’ll be messy, he warns. Also, Facebook and Netflix are reaching their own limits to growth: the number of humans.)

⏳  Blockchains are stalling in corporate deployments. “The disconnect between the hype and the reality is significant -- I’ve never seen anything like …