The State of Fintech
A translation from Swedish to English of Peter Sunde’s op-ed piece in ETC on Fintech 8/11/2023
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Once upon a time I ran a startup like that. A technology company with a radical idea; we would make it as easy to share money as any other type of information. I had also started a company that would digitize receipts and felt that there was so much that could be done with such simple means to improve the world
Today, this part of the startup environment is called Fintech, Finance technology. Sweden has a lot of shining stars here, the biggest of all is of course Klarna. In Fintech, there are rarely revolutionary ideas - with the exception of my own, of course - instead, it usually involves repackaging a working idea and throwing capital at it to buy market shares.
For example, the payment company PayPal gave its first customers ten dollars when they opened an account with them. Some of the cryptocurrency exchanges pay you to take different "courses" in cryptocurrencies, which are actually hidden advertisements for that particular currency. Fintech is not about improving the world but about making rich people richer. Klarna's largest shareholder is Sequioa Capital, which was founded by Don Valentine, the man who is considered to be behind Silicon Valley's love of venture capital.
Something I noticed during the years I worked in Fintech was that I was an odd bird. Questions you received at conferences and meetings were about turnover, market shares, which venture capitalists gave you money, how long a runway you had before the money ran out. Rarely, frankly never, did I talk to people in the industry about the societal benefits that the technology you build can bring. Maybe that's also why my projects didn't come through with a bang, even though I'd rather blame it on myself than accept that the world is evil and prefer more inequality to social improvement.
Because if you were to look at what benefit Klarna brings to society, it is downright tragic. Their installment service has driven more people to the bailiff than ever before. Their customers buy expensive junk they don't need on installments at sky-high costs.
One of the co-founders of Klarna, Niklas Adelberth, said it best himself :
"The best customer is the one who doesn't pay immediately but gets a reminder and then a debt collection letter."
Basically, Klarna is SMS loans on steroids, presented as a modern bank.
Tech companies like to point out that they operate in a global market. It mostly seems to mean North American corporate culture, ignorance of one's social responsibility and arrogance in the face of what society has contributed to the companies.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Klarna has ignored the Swedish model with collective agreements. In their industry, it's more of an asset to be arrogant in the face of "old" ways of doing things, ironically, even though the only thing you're actually dealing with is old-fashioned greed.
Part of the solution to this problem, aside from the obvious of strikes, is that we actually stop looking down on rich people so much. Sweden has more billionaires per capita than any other country in the world. Most of them have become so rich because of the Swedish model and welfare society (or legacy thereof).
It is time for us as a society to strike.
No more positive attention to people who get rich by screwing up the system.
A loan shark is a loan shark even if it's wearing a hoodie.
