But I wondered something: Farhad makes use of Uber as an example of how technology has significantly improved the experience of getting in a car. That’s true for now, but perhaps Uber and other industries like it end up going the way of airlines eventually? If an industry isn’t regulated and essentially holds a monopoly over the sector, what keeps Uber from making things worse on consumers over time? We’ve already been asked to use UberPool, which makes us pack into the car with other people. Perhaps there are other ways to improve Uber’s margins over time.

Is that me being too cynical?

Nicole: Not at all. I stopped using UberPool after my Uber driver picked up a man and a woman wearing shower caps, audibly crying on their way to the airport to say goodbye. It was awkward.

Mike: Wow. That’s like a short story waiting to be written.

Nicole: As for United, I think something like this was bound to happen anytime you outsource your customer service to automation. What happened to this passenger was absolutely horrifying. In this case, a computerized lottery determined he would get dragged down the aisle.

The bigger story is that algorithms are widening the gap between businesses and people. Outsourcing these tasks to computers may save companies money in the short term. But these public relations disasters are likely to cost them far more in the long term. United lost $1 billion from its market cap in a day. And I heard one class-action lawyer on CNN say the passenger could get a dollar for every person who has watched the video of him being bloodied up by airport cops. That’s a lot of dollars. The irony is that this guy will never have to fly commercial again.

Mike: I’m reorganizing my retirement plans around such a scenario.

Is there anything in the security world I should be paying attention to right now? I probably have to change all my passwords or something, huh?

Nicole: Security is a lost cause at this point. Just make sure you use different passwords for different sites and maybe stop using I<3Farhad420.

Mike: Hmm. I’ll think about it.

Nicole: Actually, the big story in security this week was an epic hack of Dallas’s emergency sirens that set off some 150 emergency sirens across the city last Friday and sent people flooding 911 operators with calls. Increasingly, we’re going to see this style of hacks play out as more and more of our infrastructure migrates online. Until now, everyone’s just been hooking up their smart fridges, thermostats, traffic lights, bodies online, which is cool, until you get hacked and someone’s pumping you full of insulin. Uplifting, isn’t it?