Revolutions always begin with an impossible alliance. In 1789, the bourgeoisie and the people stormed the Bastille together. They wanted the same enemy gone—the monarchy—but for very different reasons. Today, a similar coalition is forming. The new Tech Giants and the Digital Masses are preparing to dismantle the foundations of 20th-century capitalism.
Act I: The Old Regime
The world of industrial capitalism still stands—banks, oil corporations, insurance conglomerates, media empires. They rule through money, property, and regulation. But they are too slow, too heavy, too bureaucratic. They cannot keep up with the velocity of algorithms, data, and networks.
To both platforms and users, the old guard looks like a relic:
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Newspapers collapse under the weight of free online news.
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Retail giants fall as e-commerce eats malls alive.
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Cable television disintegrates as streaming becomes the new norm.
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Bureaucratic states struggle to regulate what moves faster than law itself.
Like the aristocracy before the guillotine, they cling to rituals while history runs past them.
Act II: The Alliance of Platforms and People
Here, the impossible alliance is forged.
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Platforms need the masses. Every click, selfie, and meme feeds their empire of data. Without users, there is no machine learning, no ad revenue, no digital power.
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Users need the platforms. They are given free tools: email, maps, video calls, AI assistants. The dream of global connection feels like liberation.
And together they wage war against the old order:
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Against banks – crypto, fintech, and instant digital payments undermine financial monopolies.
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Against oil and car giants – remote work, virtual goods, and platform-mediated economies cut demand for physical consumption.
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Against media barons – memes and viral videos destroy the authority of traditional newspapers and TV.
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Against states – digital movements organize protests faster than governments can react.
Like storming palaces, each industry falls—one by one.
Act III: Victory and Suspicion
At first, the victory seems shared. Platforms celebrate disruption; users celebrate freedom. The old institutions, bloated and slow, lie in ruins. It feels like liberation: anyone can publish, anyone can sell, anyone can connect.
But in the silence after the collapse, suspicion creeps in. Who rules the new world?
The alliance that broke the old chains begins to fracture.
The Next Antagonism
Just as in 1793 Paris, when former allies became enemies, the digital revolution will split:
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Platforms want empire, centralization, and control.
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Users want fairness, transparency, and autonomy.
The fall of the old order was only the beginning. The true revolution—between platforms and people—comes next.
The post-capitalist revolution will not begin with users storming Silicon Valley. It will begin with platforms and users storming the citadels of the industrial age together: banks, oil firms, bureaucracies, and traditional media. They will be allies until victory is won.
And then, as always in history, the question will return:
Who rules—the few who hold the infrastructure, or the many who live inside it?
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