Why managing our passwords is the only thing that matters.
As we start the new year in yet another lockdown, I wonder what we would have thought back on March 23rd, knowing what we know now? Luckily, we recorded our very thoughts at the time (76 days later), and it seems quite clear that things are much worse than we could have ever imagined. The virus has mutated, infections are still on the rise with close to 100,000,000 confirmed cases and the US political spectacle has culminated in a mob storming the Capitol. Even Brexit turned out to be harder than we had feared, as Boris prioritised fishing rights over the City and services, meaning 80% of the economy got no deal. In fact, the only thing that turned out much better than we could have ever anticipated is the performance of the stock market, but that is another discussion.
So, as we sit at home once again, managing our mental health, our jobs, the household and trying to take care of the kids, there really is only one place for us to turn: the internet. There is little doubt that had the Coronavirus hit sometime in the nineteen eighties, the world would have completely collapsed. Just imagine life without Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Now TV and I am even considering taking out a subscription to Fubo, as I have literally run out of things to watch. Moreover, how would we have fed ourselves? Quite clearly, without someone from Ocado coming to our house, we would all have had to run out to the supermarkets to buy our supplies, creating super spreader events and hastening the population decline.
We do our banking online, we shop for our non-essential goods on Amazon, we buy essential goods like track suits or trainers from Sports Direct, and we can even trade Bitcoin 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Simply unimaginable to even contemplate going without all of our so familiar online friends to get us through these dark, cold and gloomy winter days. To help us manage this huge array of services, we need passwords and undoubtedly, utter panic in the 21st century is defined as being locked out of our accounts because we forgot the fourth digit of our memorable word.
Where am I going with all of this? Absolutely nowhere, but that seems to be the direction of travel for the world as we know it. Until we figure out how to vaccinate 8 billion people and are able to be in the same room with people outside of our household support bubble, it’s not like we can plan anything. As such, there seems little point in doing anything at all, other than managing our passwords of course, and good luck to us all.