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A plan to future-proof America

Good morning! This Thursday, it's the one year anniversary of the day the world shut down. (Wired has an oral history, if for some reason you feel like reliving things.) In the here and now, we have the opportunities for tech in the coming trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, the big hairy audacious Roblox goal, Facebook's case that it isn't a monopoly, and a perfect way to describe Ethereum.
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It's Infrastructure Week! But maybe for real this time. With the stimulus bill all but wrapped, the Biden administration is working on multitrillion-dollar infrastructure legislation designed to do everything from fix bridges to promote the future of clean energy. And Jonathan Winer, the CEO of Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, doesn't want to miss what he called a "once in a generation" chance to build for the future.
Most of the bill's funding is going to go to fixes and repairs, Winer said. "But a pretty sizable amount of money is going to get allocated to transformative infrastructure projects," he added. "And the idea there is to do next-generation stuff."
Part of I3's plan is to try things that might not work. An influx of money could make cities more willing to experiment, to be the first ones to attack a problem like universal internet access or local drone delivery.
And huge infrastructure changes could grow out of small projects. One thing Winer told me over and over was that a lot of innovation is already happening in cities and towns across the country. The problem is that there's no system to support spreading and sharing that knowledge.
In related news: Congress voted to give $1 billion to the Technology Modernization Fund, which Protocol's Emily Birnbaum called "an unprecedented cash infusion that will go a long way toward modernizing the government's rickety technology systems." It's $8 billion less than supporters hoped for, but it'll still mean upgrades for a lot of crappy old Windows XP computers.
As the antitrust fight comes for the tech industry, Facebook is pushing back aggressively. It filed to dismiss antitrust lawsuits from the FTC and from 48 state attorneys general, saying there were no grounds to file the suits in the first place.
According to Facebook, basically everything the government alleges is either nonsense or disingenuous or disingenuous nonsense. But it makes three points in particular that will match a lot of other companies' "We're not a monopoly!" arguments:
Nothing in here is likely to make the FTC say, "You're right, we're cool, carry on." But that's obviously not Facebook's goal: Facebook wants to force its opponents to explain exactly what Facebook is doing that's wrong, and prove it's a problem. Because other than those ever-damning Zuckerberg emails, that evidence has been hard to come by.
Every tech company has what I like to call its Galaxy Brain Plan: the idea of what it could be that is orders of magnitude bigger than what it is now. This is the plan that it wants investors to bet on.
Yesterday, Roblox executives shared their Galaxy Brain Plan, just as the company rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange and hit the public market.
The Roblox vision boils down to this, I think: that there's going to be a complete, soup-to-nuts society built on the internet, with its own money, its own government, its own laws and culture. Roblox wants to be that society. And maybe someday we'll measure Roblox in GDP rather than market cap.
Investors love it so far. Roblox jumped 40% as soon as it hit the market, and closed at $69.50 yesterday. It's now a $38 billion company, after being valued at $4 billion just 13 months ago.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most-discussed and least-understood law governing the modern internet. This event will delve into the future of Section 230 and how to change the law without compromising the internet as we know it. Join Protocol's Emily Birnbaum and Issie Lapowsky in conversation with Senator Mark Warner. This event is presented by Internet Association.
The only way to make "green tech" work is if it's also better tech, Chris Sacca said:
Vitalik Buterin gave the best analogy for Ethereum I've heard yet:
Talend is being sold to Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, for $2.4 billion. Thoma Bravo is becoming a big player in the data and security world.
Merrick Garland is the new U.S. attorney general. He was approved by a 70-30 vote, and will have a lot to say about everything from Big Tech to China to how the U.S. responds to cyberattacks.
Coupang is going public today, having raised $4.6 billion in its IPO. It's now valued at around $60 billion. Protocol's Hirsh Chitkara has everything you need to know about the South Korean ecommerce giant.
Apple's moving some iPhone 12 production to India, Nikkei Asia reported, the first time an iPhone will be manufactured outside China. It will reportedly be made in a Foxconn factory in Tamil Nadu.
Parler laid off its remaining iOS developers, Bloomberg reported, after Apple refused to allow it back into the App Store.
It's Bad Luck Brian! One of the worst yearbook photos of all time – and one of the last-decade-internet's best memes — sold for $36,559, as part of Foundation's #MEMECONOMY week that has also included The Kitty Cat Dance, Scumbag Steve and other memes that won't mean anything to anyone under 30. Up for sale today: Keyboard Cat and Grumpy Cat.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the most-discussed and least-understood law governing the modern internet. This event will delve into the future of Section 230 and how to change the law without compromising the internet as we know it. Join Protocol's Emily Birnbaum and Issie Lapowsky in conversation with Senator Mark Warner. This event is presented by Internet Association.
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Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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