The Illusion Of Variety, The "Little" Empires of "Big" Brands

Adam Smith said...

"Individual ambition serves the common good"

Not only AOL but other Big names are doing the same... Should we be concerned?

Although I'm not entirely sure if I perceive the idea fully but yet, even though it ain't perfect (heck... like we're ever gonna find that one! ;-) but as a working model is it pretty decent in my opinion. So in competition ... even though at a personal level it is an entirely different aspect, but for others, the greedy need of our poor souls ;-) to go out there and get some attention does provide good things (bad as well).

But to get the real benefit from ambition cannot flow freely if somehow someone or an organization has found its way through cunningly and has the total control over brads that seems to be "independent". Now I know you might think wtf is he writing ??? well I came across a pcmag article that says, most of these tech web sites or brands that seems independent actually aren't!.

For instance sometime ago I went through techcrunch.com and then don't remember where I get the link but went through mobilecrounch.com as well. No this may not be a hidden thing but they are both owned by "AOL". Not only that the famous Endgadget.com is also theirs!.

By saying this I'm not saying that their reviews or news or whatever they write are bullshit. Far from it. Heck I even read their "stories" to get what's going on the world so I cloud hit my keboard and hopefully can come up with something useful.

But the point is that even though people behind those articles or posts haven't changed... ultimately they all work for a single (AOL in this matter) group thus they'll be serving "their" own benefits thus we as the consumers without even realizing it!. As pointed out in the pcmag .. when they buy a web site (a well established one of course) they're also buying a "brand" or people's trust to put it into other terms.

So the point I'm making has nothing to do with quality (yet!) ... but what if they keep growing and keep buying these sites and in the future at some point we could come up to a point that "individual ambition no longer severs the common good but severs the interest of a group".

Wouldn't that hurt the quality of the outcome of the news or whatever that they are "exposing"??. From another view, isn't it the "individual ambition" or "interests" of those owners of those web sites that has "forced" them to "sell" themselves (seriously I ain't childish to think that I'm any better .. I'm not but...). 

What ya all think??.

Source; this pcmag who owns whom in tech article.