The New Middle is a emerging class of people who are beginning to care about the issues in technology we frequently discuss here on the site.
Until recently, when it came to privacy, anonymity, attention fatigue, data custody, net neutrality, intellectual property and patents, even ergonomics and sustainable computing, people either used to be part of The Mainstream or used to be nerds that worked in the technology industry. There were a few outliers for sure, but no overlap.
The Mainstream neither cared for nor understood the implications of such issues on themselves, their community, their society. This indifference would shock, even offend, the nerds. The nerds on their part understood at least some of these as a result of their education. Some of them built software, hardware, service as part of their day job that involved these issues. Consequently, they cared passionately enough to make deliberate choices that would seem very odd to the Mainstream.
As technology in all its forms across all domains has become part of everyday life, over the past twenty years it has gotten extensive coverage in the national press, in print, TV and for the recent past with Netflix and such services, online. The coverage has shifted from being effusive about the transformative possibilities of new technology – “your life will never be the same after you buy a personal computer!” – to a more sober take on the effects on their ill-effects on our wellness and safety.
That has created a vastly more widespread awareness among the Mainstream. It’s affected a sizeable minority of them to think and care enough about how technology affects them, their kids, their friends that they’ve begun looking for ways to gain some control. They are no longer the Mainstream. They are the New Middle.
The New Middle is searching for tools and means to exercise this control at their level of technical competence but are underserved because they haven’t existed as an identifiable segment before.
(Part 2 – an example)