American writer Seth Godin is a good candidate for what Evgeny Morozov calls “digital utopian”. Jaron Lanier uses the term “cybernetic totalist” for the same view: that the digital revolution is a force of good with little or no shades of gray and that the main conflict is between those who embrace the digital future and those digital reactionaries who are not yet convinced. Godin is one of the more interesting digital proponents, granted. Now it seems even Godin thinks Google has gone too far with the new “shared recommendations” on Google+. On his blog, he takes a page from television history to illustrate the point where integrity is sold out. Godin argues that the new user terms is that juncture for Google where profits become more important than idealism. If those words sound familiar, that is because it’s exactly what Morozov predicted in his first book The Net Delusion, except it discussed Silicon Valley’s business with authoritarian regimes.
