A tech company with assualt teams and authorised to use weapons against people? Thats just ridiculous if u imagine if it was Google doing all that, busting into people homes like swat teams just to collect overdue fees and debts?
shareMany major corporations employ private security teams with military-grade weapons and training. Here we see that idea taken to an extreme to illustrate IOI's level of authority in this world.
shareThe film and book are set in a dystopian future. Google perhaps can’t get away with something like that now, but in a frightening and hopeless future like the one portrayed in this film, it could happen. People in RPO are obsessed with - or depend on - the OASIS because, apart from being able to have an otherworldly and cool experience, it’s an escape from the bleak work in which they live in. A world where, yes, powerful tech companies like IOI can come after you. It’s believable.
shareIt wouldn't be so bad in the Real Player One world. If the IOI arrest you for subversion or scoring too high on Donkey Kong, they'd jail you in a virtual world. That would be easy to escape from. Just take off the headset and you're free. :P
shareIf you look at how houses are reposessed in some areas by banks today, by armed police and security forces it's not much of a stretch...
Corporate private security is ever more common and increasingly militerised as the police forces have militarised over the past 15 years... It's not that big a leap from current reality... It will just happen gradually until it is normal...
If you think Google does not have a huge armed security team on standby at all times you are the one being ridiculous.
shareTheres a huge difference between security team and an assualt team, IOI is using them for offensive purposes not so much as to protect themselves.
shareYes, they are in dystopian megacorporation setting and use it for assault. The point is megacorps already have the men and hardware needed, what they dont have is the will to defy law enforcement on the matters, because its simply not economical to do so.
shareRemember another key element of the film’s dystopia: people who run up debt can be arrested by IOI and forced into servitude until their debt is paid off.
If such a measure ever passed in our world, it’s not a stretch to imagine those “security teams” could become “extract-and-employ teams.”