Molly White is on the money
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/independent-journalist-molly-white-knows-how-to-follow-the-memecoin/
Long quote, but worth it. I don't know how she stays so optimistic, though. If I spent my life cataloguing all of the graft (just in Web3/blockchain/crypto alone!) with the knowledge that there's absolutely no regulation right now of any of it, I would go insane.
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Scire: One of the things that I like about your work is that you’re obviously a critic, but at the same time, you have some optimism. You believe, like I do, that technology can be cool and interesting and life-changing. I think you have something like “tech should serve human needs rather than profits” on your About page.
Is that more optimistic position toward tech something that you find hard sometimes to put into practice? Do you feel generally optimistic about some of the tech that you’re using, if not, the tech you’re reporting on and being critical about?
White: I’ve talked to a handful of other folks who do similar work to me, and it’s interesting because there’s this weird perception that tech critics hate technology and, you know, that we’re all Luddites, that we would rather the internet didn’t exist, or whatever, you know. [Ed note: White sells some tongue-in-cheek Luddite merch.] Nobody looks at a food critic and says, “Oh, that person hates food.” Or says film critics hate film and that they wish that nobody made films. It’s like, no, they love food. They love films. And that’s why they’re a critic.
I think it’s very similar for the technology world. Most of the tech critics I know, we love this stuff. We grew up on computers. We think they’re amazing. They’ve changed our lives for the better. And we see things that are happening in the tech industry or coming out of the tech industry, and we’re like, “Oh god, that’s not what I grew to love about computers. Why is this happening?” And so we criticize it for that reason, because we would love to see the industry and broad technological developments moving in a direction that benefited people and humanity. I think that’s where a lot of it comes from, even though often people are like, “Ah, she just hates computers.”
I don’t think it’s hard to keep that philosophy because it’s so fundamental, but it can be challenging to continue to be optimistic about the forces that influence the development of technology. It does sometimes feel like an unstoppable force, when it’s huge, mega-billion-dollar companies that are capturing regulators or flouting laws to do what they want or buying politicians to write the rules that they think will profit them the most.
That’s frustrating, and it can be dispiriting. But my belief is, if we don’t talk about it, if we don’t inform people about it, then it’s absolutely going to happen. I might as well do what I can to try to keep people abreast of the stuff and allow people to make their own decisions when it comes to their voting or their political contributions or the software that they choose to buy. And, you know, God willing, we will start to see some change for the better.
