There are a few words or phrases that rub me the wrong way. One is to 'go viral'. A virus is something that latches onto a host and uses the host. The results are for the benefit of the virus and not the host. In short, it implies to me that the general public, the host, will actively do something for a company, the virus, with little or no benefit to the hosting public. And it means that the average person will somehow be compelled to spend time, money, and effort to advertise or otherwise add more value to an item then he gets back out.
Who works this way? What mental model makes this possible? If our fictional user is selfish, they would only do what is necessary for themselves, and not bother with working or a company without pay. If our fictional user is caring and charitable, they would focus on charities and causes they care about, and working or a company without pay is not one of them. And in reality, it's not a case of being selfish, it's a case of being busy. I have a limited amount of time on my hands, and if something isn't for the good of myself, my friends and family, or the general good, well, someone else has to do it.
However, even if I had a time machine, I wouldn't be helping random companies owned by strangers. No, the first thing I'd do is to show off. I'd take a modern laptop, or iPhone, or even a gameboy, travel back to the 50s, or even seek out Babbage in 19th century London and go, "Look what I've got! In the future, we get cool stuff like this!" I would travel to the 70s and 80s, find a company with a supercomputer, and show off a handheld consumer device that crunches more numbers than their multimillion-dollar behemoths. And! And I'd inform them that future computing power is so cheap, we toss the CPU cycles away rendering Mario in realtime.
This is why I am fortunate to not have a time machine. I'd end up with a broken nose.
