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Gatekeepers, like powerful tech companies, have a bad reputation for controlling what’s online. But they totally don’t deserve the heat.

One of the excitements of the digital age is that individuals no longer need permission from powerful institutions. Creators of a cat tuxedo can shop online and don’t need to persuade a large department store to stock their product. People who witnessed the emergency landing of a plane or went through a war can share their experiences over social media instead of waiting for news organizations to tell their stories.

People don’t need to win over record companies, book publishers, or Hollywood bosses to entertain us. They can reach us directly.

Regularly at On Tech, this power of the individual over the gatekeeper only half true. Yes, anyone can write an app, make a new product, make a song or share information, but the way to reach people is largely through Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Spotify and other powerhouses. The old dictators of information, products and entertainment may have faded, but new digital watchdogs have risen to replace them.

In a way, this is disappointing, and technologists say “web3” is a broad term for an imaginary future internet where individuals have more control and ownership.

Today, however, I have come to commend the gatekeepers. That doesn’t mean the web3 is a worthless idea, or that we should bring back the old Hollywood system of deciding which actors or writers could work and which should be avoided.

But there is also real value when trusted experts decide. Perhaps one reason gatekeepers have resurfaced is because they can be quite useful.

Apple determines which apps you can download to your iPhone and reviews every software code in them. Apple is an unapologetic app keeper. And although I wrote before disadvantages of this approach Now that the benefits can outweigh the benefits, we must acknowledge the good that comes from an organization choosing to weed out the practices it believes in. encouraging harmful behaviorhas tasteless, robbing good ideas or try stealing our money.

Likewise, having thousands of barbecue grill options online on Amazon or elsewhere can be amazing. But sometimes it can be a relief to stock up on just three good items for our local Home Depot to choose from.

Bonus: Home Depot probably won’t sell you fake or dangerous grids. And if so, he may be legally liable. If the grills are sold by independent merchants who sell it like a flea market on Amazon, it may not be Amazon.

I love being able to hear directly from politicians and business executives on Twitter and have millions of perspectives on a news event. Where else will I learn Russian military truck tires directly from someone with first hand experience?

But it’s also valuable for journalists to scrutinize the information and tell us what’s important. (Feel free to disagree with this journalist on the value of journalism.)

Bloomberg News entertainment correspondent Lucas Shaw recently Wrote It’s about what Web3-related movements say is wrong about empowering musicians or other entertainers to connect directly with fans without intermediaries like streaming services and record companies. “Most musicians, actors, writers, filmmakers, and creative people prefer the support of an institution with expertise,” he wrote. “It makes their lives easier.”

A great record label or agency can help polish a budding musician or actor, and a knowledgeable publisher can identify book groups to spread the word about a new title. Gatekeepers get paid for their expertise, but they can add more than they get.

This is not universally true. Some gatekeepers are ignorant or power-hungry, and some creative people don’t want all that interference. But for others, help can be a blessing rather than doing everything themselves.

Whether it’s corporate news outlets and older ones like Walmart, or younger ones like Apple and YouTube, there’s definitely something stinky about gatekeepers.

Sometimes they make stupid decisions. They take away our choices and erode the autonomy and earnings of people who make fun videos, books or cat tuxedos. Maybe web3 will end its power to arbitrate for the majority of the minority, or maybe combine power as every technology movement has for decades.

Still, even as we review them, I hope we don’t throw away anything useful about gatekeepers.

Before you go …

• Elon Musk is making some Twitter friends: A number of companies, mutual funds and wealthy individuals, including Oracle founder Larry Ellison and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, 7 billion dollars committed my colleague Lauren Hirsch reported on Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. They will become partial owners of Twitter, and the cash will reduce the size of a loan that Musk is supposed to help pay for the $44 billion acquisition.

  More on Musk: My colleagues John Eligon and Lynsey Chutel, Background to Musk’s childhood in apartheid-era South Africa.

• When cybercriminals break school: Bloomberg News calculates the cost of ransomware attacks to schoolsinvolves criminals locking down corporate computer systems and data until payment is made. Lincoln College in Illinois blamed a ransomware attack and the pandemic-related falling enrollment rate for the decision to close next week.

• YouTube videos perfectly tuned to your kids: My colleague David Segal Writer About the company behind “CoComelon” and other wildly popular online kids entertainment, and data-driven methods, including a tool called Distractatron that executives use to analyze what keeps young kids busy.

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in 1984 Keanu Reeves hosted a Canadian TV news report about a teddy bear convention. It was great. (Yes, it’s real. CBC I extracted this from their archives In 2020.) Thanks to my colleague Erin McCann for sharing the video.

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