A British View.Or rather, three companies that could fuck me over.
We all know it’s true, everyone has them and with the internet it’s almost impossible not too; it’s just so dammed convenient. Three companies which if they go bust, could destroy me are…
The internet’s biggest giant, Google has pretty much one of the strongest hold over me that any company has ever managed. They have done what most companies stride for; they have made themselves a necessity of everyday life. The internet without Google is fairly pointless.
Through AdSense and the YouTube partner scheme they pay our celebrities; with Gmail they keep me connected, Google Maps they tell me where to go and with their calendar they tell me when. Google Checkout even has direct access to my, albeit low, bank balance. Without even taking into account their searching feature, Google pretty much runs my life.
An impossibly small company in comparison to Google, Simplenote is responsible for an App on my iPod touch which is brilliant. Basically it’s a place to write notes which has the added feature that it syncs to the cloud, so I can access them from any computer with internet.
From my college lesson notes to the stuff I write for my site, if this company closed down I would lose so much writing it would be devastating. I do try to clear the useless stuff as much as I can and use the useful stuff when needed. I backup the essential notes but everything recent is all up in the cloud.
Wikipedia
The final website here is a non-profit and basically responsible for my entire college education. My coursework comes from this site and it’s pretty much essential simply because of that. If my college could actually teach me properly then maybe I wouldn’t rely so much on this site.
There’s not really much else to say, although as it is I know a fair amount about my course. I’m still slightly sure I’ll need this throughout university and then my actual working life. Knowing is half the battle, so Wikipedia will always be useful. Or something. Yeah.
