When I am working to push back on various aspects of the API space, one of the ways people feel they need to push back on me is to tell me that I shouldn't be getting all worked up about it--that markets will work things out. Aside from this being a silly argument about something that I don't really acknowledge as a reality (markets do not work themselves out), I am endlessly fascinated how people wield this like markets are something over there, that does not include me (us).
I'm pretty confident that markets include me. I'm pretty sure that I (the individual) can have an influence over market outcomes. I think this concept is a tool that the market players equip the sleeping masses with, to keep the average citizen out of the way so that they can profit from market activity unencumbered. We all have a role to play in markets, and my self-appointed role is to help influence the portion of markets being touched by the Internet, and specifically API technology.
If you tell me that "markets will work things out" in the course of our engagement in the API space, you just labeled yourself as being pretty simplistic in your views of how markets and the world works. You just put yourself in the bucket of people who consciously or sometimes unconsciously work on behalf of the "machine" to keep the world compliant, and being good consumers. I'm in the bucket over here, where I believe that markets need constant evaluation, discussion, and push back to make sure they are looking out for humans--which is something I will be working to do until I am dead and buried.
