The development of the internet and computation has played an important role in the information infrastructure. One essential characteristics of the information infrastructure is the networking. Networked information infrastructure is built on the huge volumes of nodes, we the users, are the nodes. The bigger the platform is, the power is bigger. It feels like a unstoppable and unescapable social changes for each person in the society. The infrastructure gets more and more people involve, and it would eventually change the function way of the society, and our daily behaviors without notice. If people want to be out of the infrastructure, it means that they need to get rid of parts of the society’s function. The society then is not functioning and working for them.
There is a bias between the ordinary people and the infrastructure. Overall the building of the infrastructure highly increases the efficiency of the society. However, for the ordinary people, in most conditions, they do not have the choice to decide that whether the infrastructure could be parts of their lives. What’s more, though the application of the infrastructure is so close to our lives, we do not know the how the function of it is. People can only play a passively receiver of the changes of the society.
While Neil Postman talked about the technological changes in the society, he said that, all the technological changes would bring advantages and disadvantages toward the society. In most conditions, we can only see the positive sides. And the advantages and disadvantages of the technological changes are not distributed evenly. It is obvious that, the ordinary people do not have power to push the change or evolvement of the infrastructure, then who are the ones to make the changes, and who are the ones can take the control over the infrastructure.
Delivery platform is an existing way of infrastructure. It has been part of the social service and part of the modernity. However, while we consider the words of Neil Postman, some people are actually pay for it and some are getting the benefits. In China, now Elema and Meituan are taking about 95% of the market share of the delivery market. They are the main forces of such infrastructure. The percentage of the commission fee has been increasing in the past few years, and millions of the owners of restaurants are the ones who pay for the fees. Of course, all the customers like you and me also contribute to it, just less than the owners of restaurants. This link has introduced how Eleme and Meituan made money through such infrastructure.
Overall, infrastructure actually does promote the development of the society. However, the application and evolvement of the infrastructure cannot be separated from the ordinary people. The problem is that, how the make sure that, we, the ordinary ones can are not the ones who need to pay for it.
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