If Popcorn Time can do to the TV and movie industries what Napster did to the music industry, more power to it.
The idea that technology is a threat to jobs is not a new argument. It's true that things are progressing more quickly now than in the past, but that should be to our benefit. The problem is not that technology is obsoleting certain jobs. It's that the profits from the increasing productivity of our economy are by and large not going to the average worker, but to the Larry Ellisons and Tom Perkinses of the world. So long as the middle class's income remains stagnant, so will the economy. Put the record corporate profits into the hands of the employees who made them happen, and they will jump start the economy. The richer the middle class becomes, the more jobs there will be. But so long as we allow the takers at the top to amass all of the rewards of our technological progress, we'll see high unemployment and stagnant wages continue at the bottom.
Oh yes, the problem is not technology! If only we could take money from the rich and give it to the poor, our problems would be solved! Automation good! Free market bad!
The idea that technology is a threat to jobs is not a new argument. It's true that things are progressing more quickly now than in the past, but that should be to our benefit. The problem is not that technology is obsoleting certain jobs. It's that the profits from the increasing productivity of our economy are by and large not going to the average worker, but to the Larry Ellisons and Tom Perkinses of the world. So long as the middle class's income remains stagnant, so will the economy. Put the record corporate profits into the hands of the employees who made them happen, and they will jump start the economy. The richer the middle class becomes, the more jobs there will be. But so long as we allow the takers at the top to amass all of the rewards of our technological progress, we'll see high unemployment and stagnant wages continue at the bottom.