We suppose that we all live in an enclosed world run by Disney. Perhaps one of the Disney worlds. Perhaps an island in a warm but not uncomfortable climate. An island with plenty going on. There is plenty to do and to see. But there is, for all practical purposes, no outside world. And, apart from swimming in the sea (see below) one cannot get off the island.
There are other people on the island. A mixed island, but everyone, including myself, is of middle years, still looking quite young. There is no illness or aging on this island, although there is the passage of time. There are no children. There is no crime. There is no need to earn a living. We are called, collectively, customers.
There is also management. One has an interview with management once a week at which one can discuss anything except the rules of the establishment. They are given and are not up for discussion. And one can only discuss other customers on the basis of, to the extent of one’s own knowledge of those other customers. Management does not share. I associate here both to the television series from the nineteen sixties called ‘The Prisoner’ and to the confessional of the Catholics.
There is also the management computer which knows quite a lot about the customers. I associate here to Facebook.
Customers can see the whole of their own account on the management computer. They can manage their own account to the extent of making it visible, on a selective basis, to other customers. But there is no lying and there are no mistakes. If the management computer says that you had two pints of bitter in the ‘Railway Guard’ on Wednesday afternoon, you did. And the basis of selection is visible to everyone. If customer A asks the management computer about customer B, it will be clear what part of the record of B A is getting to see, if any. All customers wear visible identity and everyone knows who everyone else is, at least in the sense of knowing their name. What else they know depends on what they have seen for themselves and what they have been permitted to see on the management computer. Management can see everything on the management computer, but see the comments on privacy below.
Every customer has a weekly budget of money. One can carry, to some extent anyway, unspent budget forward but there is no spending on account.
Every customer also has a weekly budget of privacy. One can carry, to some extent anyway, unspent privacy forward but there is no spending on account.
When buying services – having a drink, using a bedroom, taking a book out of the library, using one of the swimming pools – one can buy on a public or private basis. If the latter, one has to pay the privacy premium from the privacy budget. All purchases are logged on the management computer, but all private consumption is lumped together. There is no link between private consumption and the customer, and even though, at times, it could easily make the link, it does not.
If one goes for a swim off the island, the management computer just thinks that you are on the beach. It has no knowledge of the sea or of you being in it. The downside is that if you get into trouble, management cannot help you. Otherwise, the management computer knows where you are. Which space you are in, your position to within a meter or so. Maybe, for these purposes, the island is carved up into squares of various sizes and at any one time you are in exactly one of them. A variation would be to have cameras everywhere, so that the management computer could see you, at least most of the time and when there was light. Or microphones.
Management is visible in the form of the interviewer at the weekly interview and of the staff who provide services. But only their public life is visible to customers; their private life is invisible. At the same time, there is an interesting boundary. Management are people like customers and one cannot constrain their relations to be entirely public, service orientated. I associate to the relations between bar staff and bar customers. Or the special customers who have the ear of the landlord of the pub, special customers who are allowed to use his special private space behind the pillar.
When deciding what to do, I can just decide. Or I can ask the management computer for a suggestion, which I am free to take or not.
I can also ask the management computer about the facilities of the island. Where I can go, for example, to see a certain sort of tree. Within limits, management can respond to customer requests.
Questions
Over time, what does one come to discuss with management at one's weekly interview? To what extent does one exercise one’s rights to privacy? What sort of a relationship does one have with one’s interviewer?
What sort of thing does one wind up doing? I associate here to the behaviour of the aristocrats of the past, some of whom acquired worthwhile or at least respectable occupations, some of whom became libertines, gamblers, gluttons or drunks.
Customer suggestion
Prompted by the foregoing.
When Google started out, one of the big attractions was its clean, simple and advertisement-free interface. But now advertisements are creeping in, and creeping steadily forward. What about Google offering an account for which you pay a monthly charge, say £10 a month. They then remove all advertising material from their otherwise excellent services - for which somebody has to pay - so I don't mind paying my bit, but I would rather pay in cash than in the reception of advertisements.
One would allow them to tailor the results of searches to what they know about you and to advertisers but this would be invisible.
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