Slashdot Mirror
AOL + Time-Warner Worse Than Microsoft?
A quote from the OJR article: "Never in the history of news publishing has one company held such extensive power over what we see and hear as does AOL in the wake of the Time-Warner deal."
Have you looked at AOL's main page lately? I don't mean the one at aol.com, but the one AOL members see when they log on. If you're a Linux user, the answer is obviously "no" unless you borrow a friend's computer (and AOL account), because AOL doesn't allow Linux folks to access their system. Like blind people, we're pariahs in AOL-land. Remember that AOL boasts about their "exclusive content" constantly; I saw yet another TV commercial last night that told me this. Like it or not, AOL has become as vital a part of modern American culture as Judge Judy, and it might be nice to check in now and then to see what kind of online experience AOL's (claimed) 22 million users are getting. It's sad that I can't do this unless I choose to use a proprietary operating system, which I don't.
But I'm far more worried about the Time-Warner side of the business than I am about AOL's willingness to exclude Linux users, handicapped people, and others who don't fit into their mass-market mold. Talk about a machine to influence public opinion! Movies, books, CNN, music, a bunch of influential magazines, cable TV systems all over the country! In his day, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was considered by many to be more powerful than the U.S. president, and he didn't have a fraction of the information control Time-Warner has now.
It's easy to forget that Slashdot is a niche Web site with comparatively few readers by AOL/Time-Warner standards. Wired, Salon, Slate, and CNN.com all claim more readers than Slashdot. So do The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USAToday, and every single one of Time-Warner's magazines. More people are interested in celebrity gossip (People magazine's stock in trade) than in news about Open Source Software and ever-faster microprocessors. Time covers events that are interesting to more people than new game releases for Linux. An interview with someone like Leon Lederman or Steve Wozniak may be hot stuff to you and me, but the overwhelming majority of the world's population would rather read about Bill Clinton or Leonardo DiCaprio. Indeed, I doubt that a statistically significant percentage of Americans -- let alone citizens of other countries -- have even heard of most of the people we mention on Slashdot. And this is why Slashdot would never have grown and prospered under Time-Warner's thumb.
The section of Time-Warner's online empire for which I used to write was Netly News, the company's attempt to put out a WWW publication aimed at "hip" Internet users instead of at the general public. It got about 100,000 steady readers, which was not bad back in the "old" 'net-days of 1996 and 1997. But 100,000 readers was a tiny number in Time-Warner's eyes. Josh Quittner and Noah Robischon, who ran Netly News back then, never could get Time's marketing and ad sales people interested in promoting their little publication because Time's business people were used to readerships measured in round millions, not in thousands or hundreds of thousands. So Time decided Netly was a failure and let it die a quiet death in early 1998, not out of ideological concerns but because it simply wasn't popular enough to meet their "success" criteria.
My personal fear of giant corporate voices controlling the Internet as a news medium is based not only on their potential political influence, but also on their ability to stifle innovation online. Do you think Rob Malda and Jeff Bates would ever have been allowed to do their schtick on AOL or through Time-Warner? Would Time-Warner have tolerated -- let alone supported -- freshmeat? What about other sites that cover Linux and Open Source news, like Linux Today, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, and all the rest? What about even smaller, more "niche" sites like osOpinion, Technocrat.net, and 32bitsonline.com?
All of these sites, put together, don't attract enough readers to get a Time ad salesperson interested in actively marketing them. In Time's world, ad campaigns start at the $100,000 level and go up from there, and it really takes $1 million or more to get Time's corporate ears to perk up in any significant way. Web publishing, on the AOL/Time-Warner level, is like music or movies; they are interested in producing big hits and only big hits, and anything they don't feel they can make into a million-seller is going to be ignored.
It is true that AOL and Time-Warner will probably never be able to control the Web's content as tightly as Microsoft controls the desktop operating system market. But by making "their" information easier to find and access than information "they" don't control, and adding in the cross-promotion potential available to a company that has interests in everything from movie production to chat servers, within the next few years we could easily see a world where 95% of all Web users only access 5% of everything that's potentially available online. And if that 5% is controlled by a single giant, mass-market media conglomerate -- or even by two or three like-thinking, mass-market conglomerates -- the next generation of bright youngsters who have innovative Web site ideas will never get a chance to build a Slashdot-style following, no matter what operating system they use.
Something is dreadfully wrong with Slashdot moderation recently. It seems that a few people with questionable motives have gotten into the moderator ranks... I've never seen bad moderation so rampant on Slashdot until the past few weeks. And I can't avoid posting as AC about moderation issues now because some offended moderator will just mark me down as flamebait or something..
It seems to me that Slashdot has grown enough that the moderation system has reached another milestone. We need to carefully consider what improvements we need to fix the current problems with moderation....
The cable and the telephone companies need more harshly regulated. Right now these bastards are getting away with murder.
It's about time these people started serving the people. We need to force mandatory rates on these people and make content and bandwidth tying strictly against the law.
Of course that will never happen. Congress doesn't give a rat's ass about their constituents. All they care about is what loser companies such as the Bell and the worthless cable monopolies want.
Does your toaster explain wiring to you? Does your car explain how the fuel injectors work? Does your TV set come with an advanced course in CRT design? Of course not. Alot of people want little more then to turn things on and have them work. Then there are those of us who took things apart as kids and enjoyed it-) This isn't the old net anymore. How many current net users know what usenet is? How many remember the great reorganization?
You Americans seem to believe no other people but americans use the internet. FYI: the most wired country in the world is Iceland, the USA is the 7th most wired country in the world. More and more people outside the USA will access internet (just think about Europe...700 million people live here, opposed to 250 million in the USA). AOL has no presence in Europe. Nor will it ever have one. So I guess we don't have to be afraid about that (yet).
Nobody has suggested legislation for Microsoft. Merely that like any other law breaker that they should be punished. No new law needs to be passed to deal with the illegal acts of Microsoft. Now I now the bleeding hearts will whine that Microsoft is just a victim of society but I don't buy. You break the law you get punished.
[...] :)
Commnder-Taco3785: guys, do you have any w4r3z
SoccerGrrl: whats that
Kobain432: whatcha need?
Commnder-Taco3785: free software
Commnder-Taco3785: im lookin for image-viewer plus 3.4
SoccerGrrl: why is it free
Commnder-Taco3785: or 3.5, if ya got it
Kobain432: try http://www.geocities.com/perl_on_amiga
Commnder-Taco3785: i haven't been online that long. that http stuff is confusing
Commnder-Taco3785: can you tell me some good w4r3z chat rooms
Kobain432 has left the room.
SoccerGrrl: where you from, taco
Commnder-Taco3785: michigan
SoccerGrrl: kewl! my cousin lives ther
MrGuitar has entered the room.
Commnder-Taco3785: where does he live
MrGuitar: hey guyz!!
Terry-love has entered the room.
Terry-love: Hi all
Commnder-Taco3785: where does he live
Commnder-Taco3785: a/s check
SoccerGrrl: f 13
[...]
--rob malda, in aol chatroom "teens 107", 5/22/97
the truth will come out
Wait and see? Not much of a wait. It's already happening. Netscape 6 presets the user's homepage to Netcenter and prepopulates "my sidebar" with Time Warner content. Dropdown menus, built into the browser, direct users to AOL-provided email, chat, and content "channels."
Most Slashdot don't fully appreciate what's going on here for two reasons:
One is that they're overly obsessed with Microsoft as the Evil Empire. It is, but that doesn't mean it's the only Evil Empire.
The other is that the Linux version of NS6 doesn't fully implement the AOL integration. The Linux beta version's dropdown menus for Tinderbox, Bugzilla, and Mozilla.org distract you from the real purpose of this browser, which is to control and direct Web traffic to AOL properties. You'd get a better picture of that with the Windows version.
Have you looked at the version of Netcenter that automatically pops up when you use Netscape 6? THERE IS NO SEARCH BOX. To search, you have to blank the URL box at the top of the browser and type your search terms there.
People navigate the Web by clicking on blue underlined links. AOL owns them.
Size does matter. All publicly held corporations strive to deliver more profits and drive up share prices. In fact, it is the legal responsibility of management to do so. When any company finds a way to make more money and raise share prices, it'll do so. If it has to trample a little company, or trample you, then that's just your bad luck for being in the way.
When the same company controls the software you use to browse the Web, the ISP you use to connect to the Internet, the coaxial cable line coming into your home, all the cable news channels, the magazines on your coffee table, then maybe there's something you need to start worrying about.
Don't leave out the informative interview with the Pets.com sock puppet after Disney bought stake in Pets.com. Or the wise choice of editing out Elian Gonzalez's statement that he wants to stay in the US. Journalism like this just can't come out of places like AOL for a long time. It takes a while to build up the experience to properly pull it off.
Any wagers on if Leo's interview will ever hit the airwaves?
Heh, I gave up on them when they started pimping out my username to spamers. I used to use that mail regularly, then I stopped for a bit. After just a couple weeks, I went back and had over 100 spammages. I created a new name to give the old spam test, and sure enough, spam started coming through quickly. It's a useless system for anonymous type mail.
5. He'd have to show that damage was done.
;)
I suppose if everyone immediately stopped going to Slashdot and all that would help his case. Even more, you have to get millions of Slasheads to believe the AC. Good luck.
I don't understand your comparison at all. Levittown is filled with inexpensive, mass-produced homes. No easier or harder to use than any other home. The differential is that they're very inexpensive for the area. An online service that is like Levittown would be something that offers similar service as other ISPs but at a significant discount.
:-)
Now stop insulting Levittown, some of my friends live there
----------------------------
Or their own, for that matter. Which is precisely a big part of the problem.
An interview with someone like Leon Lederman or Steve Wozniak may be hot stuff to you and me, but the overwhelming majority of the world's population would rather read about Bill Clinton or Leonardo DiCaprio.
Or, better yet: Leonardo DiCaprio interviewing Bill Clinton!!! Only ABC could bring you that level of journalism. Time-Warner/AOL can't hold a candle to that.
I realize and understand this. AND I don't have a problem with it. As I said, the problem lies when AOL et al get so big that they shut out the fringe markets where all the really cool stuff is happening, and since we are a high cost/low margin market, we're the first ones on the chopping block when the mass media want to increase their profits. All that may be left is mass-market media and pure commercialism. Is that what you want? AOL's position is hardly clueless, but it's not one that I'm particularly comfortable with, are you?
If AOL wants to be the king of mass-market media, that's perfectly fine with me, as long as they don't go and buy out every media outlet in existence and then close them down to decrease my choices and increase their profits.
I will also pose another question. You say millions of AOL subscribers may find that AOL offers everything they want, are you really so certain of that? I can tell you that I know a *lot* of AOL users who really dislike the service but are afraid to try something else, simply because of all the time they have invested in learning it and don't want to change (they don't want to change email addy's, etc)...it's the whole worse is better argument all over again, and has absolutely nothing to do with AOL's supposed friendly interface.
As for multiplatform AOL, I'll believe that when I see a Solaris client. ;)
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
Sorry, looks like I messed up one of the links:
Government PSYOPS story from FAIR can be found here, and a second source from counterpunch can be found here. I also note that the PSYOPS officers were working in the CNN Newsroom during the Kosovo War. This does not bode well for objective reporting from conglomerate corporate sources during time of war.
Apropos of this, I was recently spammed by an entity proposing to create, for a fee, 600 "websites" all pointing to mine. It looked suspiciously like an attempt to fool Google-like search engines into ranking a client site higher.
"Hmmm... Let's see, whom do I think sucks LESS??", I guess this guy here gets my X. I have no recourse if I think they all suck. And, if I skip anyone, at least in my voting area here in Nebraska, they throw my whole ballot out as 'INVALID'. Which is complete shit. I shouldn't be forced to vote for anyone I don't approve of.
Instead of "Which sucks less" I should be able to vote "all these people suck, get someone else...". If a person doesn't gets above a certain level of "no way" votes, they have to re-do that elected position.
Do ya think that's doable?
C'mon its not realistic to equate AOL to Microsoft for a moment. Microsoft for a while seemed a viable PC operating system monopoly. The DoJ's punishments won't really change this perception greatly, but the trial has shattered the perception of Microsoft as a business supplier and partner. This is good. These are locations where Linux and the BSD's are most heavily used. Ease of use doesn't matter in the back office of a skilled organisation. Numbers was never the Linux game. Let's not make it that. Its about what we want and what we use it for. The clueless masses can still pay through the nose for Windows, and sometimes for proprietary software, if they can live with the price (not dollars, flexibility and reusability and versatility mostly) Numbers shouldn't be game with the web either. Does it matter if most clueless newbies use AOL and Time Warner? Not really, I would say AOL is very early in the life cycle of a net user - they'll move on to a raw ISP as soon as/if they no longer need the handholding, and it to this audience that sites like Slashdot cater for. If AOL suffocates choice its main victim will be the quality of its own products - and inevitably itself. Newbies themselves will, eventually, be in decline, as the net works its way into our life, so that eventually AOLs hand-holding will be almost redundant. C'est la vie. The real battle is to create an artistic platform using Free Software. Artists crave free software - its the last link in the MP3 supply chain, or do you think they all buy that Windoze software - Cubase, plugins, synths etc??? They need an intuitive and configurable platform - they are hackers but not code hackers. So an artist might record and tweak a macro, but shy away from scripting it in PERL. Lets get them making stuff on free software, distributing it on free software, and testing it on the standards compliant viewers and browsers shipped with the free software distro. Then, free software will set the standards, instead of playing catch-up...
At that point it would not even be 'the internet' anymore that they were proving, and all the 'real' internet users (i.e. not AOL) would just switch to a real provider and have a deliciously AOL free 'net experience.
heheh. naboola-boola. you are a comedy genius my friend.
Why do you assume that just because people don't have the same priorities as you, they must be stupid? My VCR clock isn't set. Not because I'm stupid, but because it isn't a priority to me. I bet you don't do some things others do, but that doesn't make you stupid (change your oil, tune your car, mow your own grass, cook real meals, etc, etc). People's priorities are different. No wonder people call us/you geek. Chris
The problem is that the laws that are being used to go after Microsoft aren't really applicable in this day and age.. sure, they've had some questionable business practices, but does _anyone_ really think we'll get better goods/services or an improved market from breaking up Microsoft? If anything, the consumer is going to suffer from having to deal with multiple corporations that provide OS, apps, and internet products.
The consumer is the big loser in this equation, regardless of how you chop it up.
Just because the things we don't necessarily like are the most successful doesn't mean that we need some form of governmental intervention in order to "make things right" -- there will always be another Microsoft, or AT&T (see Bell Atlantic), or Standard Oil (see BP Amoco and Exxon Mobil).
-s
---- noi non potemo aver perfetta vita senza amici -- Dante
No, fool, open source software can't get "bought up." Once it's released as open-source, we get it forever. Can't retroactively change license agreements (UCITA notwithstanding.) That's the whole point.
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat." -- John Lehman, Secretary of the US Navy 1981-1987
There's one for the tagline file. :)
Thanks
The State government of Lousiana has been going out of their way to make trouble for the groups organizing residents near toxic facilities. These residents are nearly universally poor and black, and it probably isn't a coincidence that the toxic facilities are where they are. Furthermore, Lousiana is a pretty corrupt place. I don't think it's a strech to say that the government is pretty much for sale there. The fact that you might not have been aware of this might justify the underreportedness of this story. (In fact right now, a former Lousiana Governor is on trial for Federal corruption charges. This case isn't getting any national coverage -- except in the sport pages because the former owner of the 49ers was involved.)
"NATO Deliberately Started the War with Yugoslavia" isn't pathetic and wasn't underreported at all -- it's a fact and was headline news for many months. Of course, NATO was reacting to the ethnic clensing policies of Yugoslavia, and this was explained by Clinton and Albrecht and everyone else in the government. I think what you are reacting to is the liberal, antiwar tone implied by calling this story "underreported".
But generally, your points are on - "Pharmaceutical Companies Put Profits Before Need" isn't so much news as a fact of life, and so on.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I am a business student. Almost any other business student out there will answer that the goal of a company is to increase shareholder wealth. In one of my classes we were exploring this statement further. The key is the word wealth. Profits are a subset of wealth but there is much more. The overall quality of life can also be included wealth. When a company is evaluating decisions it uses wealth as a criteria however in most cases it is just profits. Although naive, the possiblity exists for companies to evaluate their decisions on the broader sense of the word wealth. In this case moral issues can have equal priority as profits. Will AOL use wealth as I have described it? No, the The investors are looking only for a return on profits and AOL must react to them because they are the owners of the company and provide the cash flow necessary to expand. Although the companies are directly responsible for their actions (i.e. Microsoft) they are also reacting the whims of invesotrs. There is a lot more to think about than just whether a company is good, bad and profitable vs. unprofitable.
A time-honoured truism comes to mind:
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Why don't you check out what's in your own closet before you try to expose someone else's.
That's not libelous, it's satire. There's a big difference. Being able to make fun of people, especially the rich and powerful is a fundamental part of any reasonable concept of free speech.
But obviously you aren't: you are not interested in stopping slander, but only when it is convenient and goes against your pro-Open Source, liberal, anti-Microsoft agenda.
Warning: The following sentence contains gratuitous satire. Severe choking hazard for small minds.
It's way past time for your medication.
See? That didn't hurt you did it?
Hear, hear (sp?). Remember, the basis of the British judiciary system (unlike, for instance, the French Napoleonic code) is the presumption of innocence. Microsoft is getting strung up because they abused their monopoly power and it was clearly proven so. It is true that AOL/TW has more *political* power than Microsoft, but until they can be shown to have abused that power, they are free to wield it. So, keep an eye out for abuse and anti-competitive practices by AOL/TW, and be suspicious if all the AOL/TW outlets are agitating for a war against Mexico (or some other nation). But until they cross that line, they are free to continue as they are now. Otherwise, in order to stop Big Brother, you become him by punishing not just thought-crime, but the ability to commit a crime.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
you can see for yourself if you don't believe me...
didn't I see one of the AOL/Sun/Netscape suits holding a new net device that ran Linux? Seems like it was Steve Case. If that is the case, they better have support for Linux up soon.
Don't be so paranoid guys!!
I'll buy and device that doesn't run winsnows. why pay the MS tax?
photosMy Photostream
Lets take a step back, and think about this particular situation. (PSYOPS) guys in newsrooms. These guys jobs in many cases is to find out how news agencies work, for the intention of using that information in other countries.
While I would not like for that to be used against me, or for me to be used as a guinea pig, they need to get training somewhere. It makes pretty good sense for PSYOPS guys to intern at CNN.
This is mostly paranoia, in my opinion.
/*---------------------------*/
Man? What is man?
But a collection of chemicals with delusions of granduer.
/*---------------------------*/
Man? What is man?
But a collection of chemicals with delusions of granduer.
AOL/TW is aimed at the people who consume information. If you sit at the TV and just absorb, this will affect you since you are a sheep. If you participate in dialog, I don't care what it is, you will not care so much to have your opinions owned and marketed, and you will belong to the alternative group that isn't affected by soap commercials.
It is true you can get power by receiving money in return for pandering to the sheep. It is true you can make sheep do some things. It's true that you can be a participant and not have the loot Steve Case does. However, it isn't true that someone else can make you have opinions. You generate those, or allow someone else to generate them for you, depending on whether or not you are willing to think.
AOL doesn't own napster, does it? I think you are referring to Gnutella, which is entirely unrelated, although functionally similar. And also note that AOL has temporarily killed Gnutella because of its ability to undermine all that Time Warner stands for.
Quality content like CNN's 24-hour Elian Watch. I heard today they were going to talk to a panel of experts on how *best* to give Elian back to his father. What a joke.
--
+&x
We need to treat corporations like people. If they treat you like an asshole, treat them like one. Get the marketplace talking, build hate sites, build love sites, whatever. And for god's sake, encourage your friends to ditch AOL.
--
+&x
Hey, I resemble that! :) Yes, slashdotters pretend to be pricks, yet I suspect that they don't do much more than read slashdot, hence they are harmless.
But the disciples spread some good. They are for open source (although they don't always know why). I don't like anything closed. e.g. MS software which results in my getting oodles of Word documents when text would have worked just fine. And those damn web pages that are unreadable without IE. (I think 99.999% of slashdot readers are Windows users, but I digress.)
I like the rants. Even if they are totally unfounded. For a brief moment I feel as though I am not alone on a "World Wide Web" which requires IE. And I can pretend that there REALLY is freedom of speech which isn't controlled by corporatations.
Regards,
Tim
You make a good point that is almost always ignored by the slashdotters; a monopoly is a government creation.
MS ain't no monopoly. Ugly, yes, monopoly, no. Only the gov can inforce a monopoly -- wish I would have saved the letter I got from the IRS when I inquired about their ad for "free" online tax service which required MS.
The reply to my VERY polilte letter was "you are not using a PC", because I was not using MS IE.
I feel that the gov is actually enforcing a monopoly with the preference of IE. (Run any gov web site through the w3c web valitor if you are in doubt.)
Regards,
Tim
Quality content like CNN's 24-hour Elian Watch. I heard today they were going to talk to a panel of experts on how *best* to give Elian back to his father. What a joke.
Apparently it's ok to herass people who write (perfectly legal) computer programs i.e. cphack, DeCSS.
But when it comes to matters such as international laws of child kidnapping (Hague Convention) or dealing with a criminal company (Microsoft). It's suddenly vital to ensure that the criminals are treated nicely.
There is something very seriously wrong here.
I always found MSs press releases to be the most shameless. "... empowering users to simply and easily [do a thing] with just one mouse click..blah blah blah".
But only to do certain specific things easily, regardless of whatever it might be the user wants/needs to do.
It seems to me that Microsoft hasnt been alone in their business practices for quite some time. Not only companies like Time Warner/AOL but also companies like Cisco Systems.
Although they produced a large part of the hardware that makes up the internet, they have used their power for evil. Cisco is extremely proprietary with their products. They have made it a practice to forbid any and all companies from creating software for their routers therebye making CiscoIOS the only choice for peoples' router needs.
Another thing that should be addressed is CiscoIOS itself. Cisco has made a practice of buying smaller router producing companies and taking their router software and slapping a CiscoIOS label on it. So we have many many versions of CiscoIOS that are extremely dissimilar.
By doing all of that, Cisco has created a closed loop that relies completely on them being at the center.
Internet technology is one of the fastest growing industries right now and Cisco's business practices are stifling growth. For example, Cisco uses marketing to sell their products, even though they may not always be the best available. (Sound familiar?) Cisco's reliance on marketing is illustrated by the fact that they were one of the last companies on the planet who developed a Terabit router.
All of this adds up to the fact that Cisco is developing a monopoly and they arent even trying to not do it. They are forming their power base even more aggresively than Microsoft.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
AOL has no presence in Europe.
That's interesting, given the amount of money AOL is spending in Europe on their subscribers. According to my latest annual report [yes, I own shares; yes, I voted against the merger].
What you said used to be true. It isn't any longer.
Will in Seattle
The thing is without government regulation and support these monopolies wouldn't exist, or if they did come into existence in most places they wouldn't last long. It's only when it becomes illegal to compete with monopolies (thanks to freindly government regulation) that the consumers are hurt and are powerless to cut them down to size. The beauty part of capitalism is that if company X has a good deal going exploiting people, company Y will see this, and setup shop and exploit people slightly less than company X, who will then be forced to lower prices/improve service in order to keep exploiting people, then out of the blue company Z comes along, screwing people a little less than X and Y and so on, competing for the ability to exploit people until all the sudden the people have bunches of choices offered by viscous competitors.
/. will spring up for any topic imaginable and provide a much better online experiance to their users. This will take a while and in the interim TM/AOL may get away with alot of shit but in the long run consumers will get what they want, so yea the mindless sheep of the world can read all about Leo's new haircut in People, the rest of us can keep reading /. and the handful of newspapers and magazines written at more than an 8th grade reading level.
Our local electric utility government monopoly charges the max of what regulators say they can charge, which is typically higher than what the market would allow if competition existed (and it would if legal) One thing the government does do (at least with phones) is to raise the rates(via the universle service charge) of these services for city dwellers in order to keep rural service cheap, which simply fucks up the system and is a big reason why rural phone service to rural areas of the US sucks donkey balls. The big telcos (with their government supported monopolies) are able to charge an artificially low price for rural service (at a very low quality) thus making it impossible/impracticle for anyone to compete in the rural market with new technologies that would improve the quality of serivice. So people in rural levels are getting nice low government rates for their phones, but also have to deal with the lowest level of phone service the government allows, and have no alternitives.
Time Warner/AOL will choke to death on it's own bile without any help from the government. Specialized sites like
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Hack AOL's client into a proxy cache.
Shure it's illegal, but who chares.
It may be a great test of the DCMA and the "circumvention" clause since it will allow
open platform access to AOL's content.
oh....my!
Ok, since I posted this, the poll results shot up from 1,400 votes (+-) to over 3,700 votes, yet the percentage did not change even one point (still 82% yes and 18% no). Can you say rigged? NOT A SINGLE POINT CHANGE! No way.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Here is a page with an article and poll on it. Let them know what you think! :) Have fun.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
It's a big difference. Micros~1 is on the ropes, but they might still make a comeback. However, they and the financial community know that they have serious troubles. I mean, heck have you seen poor, sad Bill Gates' commercials trying to rebuild M$'s (and his own) image? Despite everything, having a judge rule against you in a very public, potentially very damaging case is a big public relations loss.
AOL, though, has done a lot of shady things, and yet their image is hunky-dory in the public eye. Some shady things AOL has done:
1. Exploited High School students by having them work as AOL volunteers.
2. Practiced Trojan Horse Marketing.
3. Disclosed confidential information about its members.
And, well, the list goes on. The only thing we should worry about AOL competing with M$ in is shady business practices. I don't care if they continue to produce their crummy Internet service as long as they do so honestly and ethically. Their past track record, however, does not give me much confidence of this.
Of course, I never underestimate Bill Gates, he might make a comeback and beat all his enemies, sort of like Francis Urquhart in that BBC series...
But why does it have to be a competition between AOL and Micros~1, can't I hate both companies? ;_;
(And despite his many infamous deeds, I still prefer Bill Gates to the Soap Salesman. I can at least picture Bill reading Heinlein or Asimov.... I don't even want to imagine what the Soap Salesman reads... probably stuff about synergy and marketing brochures.)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Anyway, there must be someone out there whose mom and pop ran an ISP, for without a child, there could be neither mom nor pop. Q.E.D.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
civil disobedience..? REBOOT AMERICA? think THE WHOLE SYSTEM SUCKS? What are we, sheep? www.unamerican.com
"What thou shalt not, I shalt did!" -Bart Simpson
You can call somebody a racist, sexist, homophobe and on slashdot, it's a good shot that you'll have people both offended and supportive. But an Outlook Express user? Now that's dirty pool...
(note for the funny impaired, this post was supposed to be humorous, it is not in any way an attempt to express opinions about the actual state of Rob Malda or any other person including that Anonymous Coward guy (though you do wonder how he types so many messages))
DB
Not setting it b/c yo don't care and not setting it b/c you don't know how are different. Most people don't KNOW HOW. As evident from alot of people i know..
Don't say
are you referring to the government itself, or the people residing within the state? the latter seems more likely...
instead go here and read the article itself; it deals with environmental pollution.
And where you say
the tenth point, "The U.S. and NATO Deliberately Started the War with Yugoslavia", just seems pathetic.
it's awful to hear you uncritically buy into the official story, that's the whole point of the article! The NATO assault against Yugoslavia - the aerial slaughter of the Albanian refugees and the Serbian civilians, the precision bombing raids against schools and hospitals, that appalling attack against the Chinese embassy which the CIA still asks us to accept as an accident, the targeting of the Serbian television outlets (which, I'll s-p-e-l-l out for you, was intended to prevent their side from broadcasting bombing-campaign video from the ground to the world; that is, the real target was your consciousness) - the whole deliberate hypocritical exercise in neo-fascism - read the "Project Censored"citation here - was sold to the American public by a systematic program of lies - "PSYOPS" - out of the news media in direct collaboration with U.S. military intelligence.
Think about what you know for a minute: how long ago did you become acquainted with the place name "Kosovo"? and who where and how did "Kosovo" come to your attention? and what "facts" do you know - the more accurate word is believe about the last three years's events in Kosovo? The answer: what the giants of the mass media, under the direct, immediate supervision of Army intelligence specialists in "pychological operations," want you to believe. And on the basis of this paper-thin synthetic "belief," after merely reading the title of the article, you dismiss that article as "pathetic."
As far as what you interpret as left-wing bias at Project Censored: such a bias may exist, but so what? While groping in the ddark-and-fog of nescience, trying to get a handle on what's going on in this farflung world, it's only good sense to take advantage of existing inter-party animosities. I rely on left-wingers to alert me to the follies, excesses and crimes of the right wing, and I rely on right-wingers to do the same regarding the follies, excesses and crimes of the left. So should you.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Does anyone know whether the open directory has this bubbling?
> IMHO Microsoft will focus its business back onto > computing and software and continue to get rid > of media/Web holdings (as they did with > Expedia).
Don count on it: check out this story on yahoo. It details how microsoft just bought a cable company in Japan
Mr. Limo mentioned that we ought to take a look at the web page that AOL users see when they fire up a net connection... says that Linux users can't even see the page? Is this true? Can anyone at least provide a URL so we can see for ourselves? Even Micro$oft isn't that discriminatory in regard to web browsers.
I'm going to start by saying the 'average person' & me are barely the same race, let alone at all similiar (& the 'average person' tends to like to point this out to me whenever I encounter them). I don't watch much TV at all (I think all of seven series get my attention) & I don't watch many movies (because I think they are mass media junk I think I watched three whole movies all of last year). I spend more than 30 hours a week online (thats where I prefer to look for my news & entertainment so I have a choice) & I read books (what horror I can read! & not those pansy 'top selling' drivel books & romances either). So as you can see I'm far from what people consider to be normal in this day & age.
In my opinion AOL has already started trying to force out the competition. I worked tech support for two different ISP's for the last 6 months & I can't tell you how many memebers of these two ISP's had AOL & some other ISP, but after they all upgraded their version of AOL all they had was one working service namely AOL. They simple users didn't knwo theyed be selling their online soul over to AOL when they didn't uncheck one option in the upgrade installation for AOL & so AOL's software blithly went about making all other ISP's inoperative on their computer even after the software was uninstalled. I must have sent personnely 2000 users to talk to AOL tech support to re-enable what their software did.
For that matter a relative of mine recently bought a computer for her daughter & because it had one of those AOL 'coaster' CD's offering free internet in the box with the PC she felt obligated to install that very same latest version & then couldn't use the ISP she used for her machine on that one. I get stuck as being the first person all my relatives call for tech support, so I had to tell her she needed to call AOL to get rid of what their software did.
This is what AOL is like & they have tried similiar things in the past. Maybe it's just ebcause I like supporting the underdog, but this kind of long term behavior from AOL makes me sick.
It also doesn't give me hope for the practices of the comapny after this Time Warner deal. Just think AOL software designed for use with all Time Warner cable modem users. But it has the same block out features as AOL's software had (I think they were forced to change their program, but I haven't seen the change yet on my end & that's not the point it shouldn't ahve been their in the first place), so that even after it's gone you can never use another ISP, cable modem system, or DSL provider's service without more trouble than it's worth to the end user.
I can't even comment on what they'll try in the otehr media markets this opens up to them, but let me just say it doesn't put me at ease... I think (as scary as it may sound) I prefer Microsoft & intel over AOL... less potential to warp the fragile minds of the 'common man' witht hem at least...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Most of the non-US citizens I know read most of their news ... from their local newspapers' pages. FEW read only AOL+Time-Warner-owned sites
Good point... Do you think that similar mergers might happen in other countries? Or in a more globalized economy, mightn't AOL expand its reach to other countries? If I'm correct, AOL has a presence in the UK...
jerdenn
I often thought that there should be some content reviewer giving points for propoganda.
I always found MSs press releases to be the most shameless. "... empowering users to simply and easily [do a thing] with just one mouse click..blah blah blah".
Never a word about standards. Never a word about reliability. Never a word about conectivity. Never a word about compatibility.
And when pressed on these points, the standard answer seems to be "it's the most standard" "it's the most compatible" "it's has the best conectivity" or some other contentless blurb.
Then there's this little one from AOL at: http://recruit.web.aol.com/media/press _view.cfm?release_num=25100429&title=AOL%20Launche s%20Next%2DGeneration%20Netscape%206%20B rowser
"Mr. Case said: "Our next-generation Netscape 6 browser will provide consumers and businesses with exciting new opportunities to enjoy the full energy and versatility of the interactive medium" anywhere, anytime and any way they want.
If this doesn't score a (Score-1 Propoganda) nothing does.
You really want a laugh?
They have there own "Fact Book" (warning: fat PDF file)
___
AOL has no presence in Europe. Nor will it ever have one.
What about AOL UK, AOL Germany, AOL France , and AOL Sweden ?
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
I agree. Some of the stories may have merit, some were a little out there, and others were pathetic.
My favorite was the one about US soldiers 'killing and eating poor defenceless rabbits'... Bwah ha ha ha!!!
Seriously! It was #25 on the list.
Personally I feel AOL is far more dangerous than Microsoft. Microsoft has kept its roots in software for the most part, barring a few excursions into the realm of hardware (mouse, keyboard, joystick, video game console) but for the most part Microsoft is making software, and will continue to make software. AOL has many plans under its sleeve. Aside from connecting millions of people to its service and offering the internet they now own their own Web browser/Server company, and have merged with a large media machine (Time/Warner). They can now control TV, Radio, Music, Theater, Internet, Pretty much everything. They only thing I feel the company needs to become a serious sore to society is an operating system.
"merger is that it will stifle development of innovative, non-mainstream Web sites" Please, you seem to think that these mega-mergers really effect you, don't you. Granted it will in some ultra-minor respect, and that isn't where it is considered a problem. But rather when that little effect is felt by millions of people. This merger will in NO WAY effect the creativity of those freelancers, so why even say it will stifle their development. Get a life. I all for anarchy (well well thought out at least anarchy), but this stupid propoganda you guys spread sometimes is ridiculous. I don't think this merger is good by any means, but this one statement to me ruins your entire argument.
Somebody already said it earlier: 5% of the web, read by 95% of the users. It's not the amount the information so much as how accessible that information is.
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
Please provide one iota of proof that this has ever happened.
Please point me to a subject, and to multiple URL's covering the subject, where the size and quality of the sites are equivalent, where the corporate sites have ranked higher in the search ranks.
Note that the algorithms that the search engines use are well documented, and that the sites whose content is tailored toward this rank higher. It is not a matter of paying the search engines, it is a matter of conforming to the search engine's mechanics.
I run an independent site for a musician, who also has a corporate site, and in some engines, my site is ranked on top, and other the corporate site is ranked on top. I didn't pay anybody for my site to be ranked on top, and I presume neither did my corporate competitor.
Until you provide me with documented proof that this is occuring, I will assume that you are a do-gooder liberal who wants the government to be bigger and bigger and pass more and more laws governing the acts of private entities.
If people were really liable for slander on web sites, Bill Gates could sue the pants off a great many slashdot posters who continually seek to defame Mr. Gates in much more inhumane manners than what is currently being done to CmdrTaco (limited by the 8 character Linux user names are we?) Even Slashdot's editorial staff has defamed Mr. Gates by the icon for Microsoft stories, which seeks to portray him as an alien out to convert everybody to his collective.
But because it is so incredibly fashionable and trendy to bash Microsoft, nobody gives it a second thought. If somebody dares claim that His Holiness Commander Taco is a racist, the whole world falls apart. People are screaming, lawsuits are flung in every direction, and people all over the world hold hands for the Poor, Meek Commander Taco who is just trying to make it is just trying to make it in the big, bad world.
If you were truly interested in stopping propaganda, you could constant be posting messages in defense of Bill Gates, since there is by far more slander posted against him than Commander Taco. But obviously you aren't: you are not interested in stopping slander, but only when it is convenient and goes against your pro-Open Source, liberal, anti-Microsoft agenda.
Perhaps, but the volume will be far less however. I think it'd be hard for AOL (or any other ISP for that matter) to become dominant in Europe in the ISP sector since most users use local ( == domestic) ISPs. If they could provide a nice and fast cable connections for a really low price, then they could have an edge, though.
I don't think it'll be an issue when speaking of the ordinary web-over-[phone|ISDN|...] markets, but when the influx into broader-bandwidth-connections begins, we may have another situation. In Finland, local telephone companies (and cable TV companies) will have an edge over competitors. That can become a problem.
I'm being as Europe-centered here as Roblimo is being USA-centered. Sorry for that. Hey AOL! There are ~1 billion people in India and another billion in China, why don't you guys go there (and leave us alone)?
by making "their" information easier to find and access than information "they" don't control, and adding in the cross-promotion potential available to a company that has interests in everything from movie production to chat servers, within the next few years we could easily see a world where 95% of all Web users only access 5% of everything that's potentially available online.
OK, Rob, I think you're missing a point here. People search the web. Yes, if this 95% you're talking about just want to turn on the computer like they turn on the tv, then they won't find the sites you cherish. Otherwise, if they're looking for information, there are nifty little sites like google and altavista out there.
Just thought I'd share...
They're like a rabid wolverine on crack with an uzi.
Now that is an image I have to remember! It just describes Microsoft so perfectly! Although one does wonder how Windows fits in... Perhaps its part of the rabies? Or could it be the crack? ;)
-RickHunter
The best thing about that site is that for some reason AOL thought they needed to make "FullDisclosure" a registered trademark, just to make it look official.
Standing up to M$ shows that its coming back and hopefully this AOL-Time Warner merger will be the next on their list. Unless we only want to see AOL commercials.
-Foxxz
1. AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com
Seems like Altavista is commonly searched for on Lycos... it's popular
most of this stuff is what seems to be reactionary, down with the evil oppressive US government, crap.
"Lousiana promotes toxic racism": are you referring to the government itself, or the people residing within the state? the latter seems more likely, yet they can't actually go out and say that, else their reporting wouldn't be so sensational.
the tenth point, "The U.S. and NATO Deliberately Started the War with Yugoslavia", just seems pathetic. This is somehting that sounds like it's straight from the national enquirer.
"Pharmaceutical Companies Put Profits Before Need". Isn't that the entire point of starting a company? to make money?
anyway, that's about it. Just because something seems revolutionary or subversive, it shouldn't be given automatic creedence. Take everything you read with a drop of salt, as they say...
Saint Alex
Observe, reason, and experiment.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
Hmmm... IP scan complete! The troller was... Signal11! I knew it!
--
I like to watch.
Hmmm...
X MAILER: MIRCOSOFT OUTLOOK EXPRESS 5.00
Yep, must be Rob.
--
I like to watch.
For instance, regarding porn. Some people like cock-gobbling teens, some love nude Asian schoolgirls, some love hot anal action, and some love Black Dicks in White Chicks. Wouldn't is suck (pardon the pun) if we only had one source for our pornography?!? I really value the fact that I can go from blond pornstar gangbangs to interracial gay orgies in the click of a mouse, if I found the need, while masturbating.
Don't give up your right to porn variety. No-one -- not AOL, not Time, not even God herself (Jenna Jameson) -- can take that away from us.
This goes well with the OSS mindset. We like the internet, and that's where we get our porn. We like free things, and our porn is free (no one actually uses those pay-only sites). We like Linux, and you can be god-damned sure that Linus Torvalds himself takes breaks from coding to masturbate to freaky Finnish goat porn. He may even own his own goat, which he keeps in his bed to hump whenever he feels the urge.
Oh, wait, that's his WIFE?!
--
I like to watch.
Small ones like mom and pop ISPs...
Sure, "mom and pop" ISPs are fine, but I worry about the "Weird Gay Uncle" ISPs and "Loser-brother" ISPs.
Seriously, whose mom or pop runs an ISP? Isn't that what AOL is for? Old people? Like Rob Malda?
--
I like to watch.
I have Time Warner cable and it's the same for me. You can use it under anything that has a DHCP client software on it. It works with the default installs for Linux (the ones I've tried at least). They don't even change my IP for months because I never turn off the computer. The only problem is the upstream speed is capped at 64KB/sec so uploading stuff is slow.
ok, i downloaded it, and have to say that it must be the worst .pdf file ive seen to date. first. its huge. and little content... ive seen people pack 100+ pages of detailed drawings of electrical components into a file of comparable size, this has only 36. took about 6 minutes (yes, i timed it) to load the first page. page 4-5 was almost identical to page 1, just differnet format... and for the most part it gets -42, propaganda on the moderator list. this one most definatly gets the /dev/null treatment.
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
One reason AOL has so many users is that the majority of people who use computers now are users, not programmers or administrators. They have career and personal responsibilities that they devote their time to that is more important to them than spending time learning to search for and use all the web has to offer. They don't eat, sleep, and drink computers like many /. readers do. To them, the internet is a leisure time activity, chat with friends, find out what the newest movies are, etc.
Because when I was in school I debated between becomming a programmer, or a registered nurse. I enjoy computers, but found nursing to be much more rewarding to me. I use an ISP for surfing, and connect to AOL using TCP to keep in touch with my friends who would rather have their hands held while using a computer. And that is not because they aren't capable of learning to get online without AOL, but it is more important to them to learn how a ventricular assist device or pacemaker works.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Uhh, what planet are you from? It is exactly the power and size that matters, and what they have potential to do. Do you really want to just sit around and be happy of other people controlling your life, just because they treat you well? How about the right to choose for yourself? What about all the people who doesn't like the way they are treated? We are talking about modern dictatorship here, think Hitler!
And YOU (nor I) are their target audience. Bottom line: MILLIONS of memebers find that AOL offers evertyhing they want and more in an easy to use package. Would I use it? No. Would I reccomend it to my mother? You bet! AOL does not equal windows only. As Steve Case has said his "vision" is for AOL Anywhere. Multi platform AOL is coming soon I imagine. AOL does not mean the AOL client. They've already stated that RoadRunner will not require their client. What does AOL mean? AOL means mass-market media. That's it, no catering to frige groups like us geeks, pure raw commericialism. People LOVE to slam the large companies as "clueless" and evil.. But they obviously know something we don't or they wouldn't be big and rich.
I was crushed when I found out that they had been aquired by someone else.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
You miss the point. People today have enough choices to choose from, if it's in the AOL-TW area or in the MS area. You and your fellow anti 'evil empire people' are IMHO blind for one simple fact: the 'average I-don't-know-sh*t-about-computers-Joe' doesn't C A R E who made the stuff he uses on his home PC as long as he can do his thing on it.
From a weird technical point of view you are probably right, but it simply doesn't matter to them, no matter how wrong it possibly is. you can put as much energy in your struggle against 'the evil' as you like, the more you do, the more you won't be understood by te majority of computer users and THUS make you look like the 'evil' to them instead of the 'evil empire' you ment. Is that what you want?
I'm sure you don't. Learn lessons from the past: Commodore marketing wasn't happy with the ultra fanatic Amiga users. I was one of these in the past, I know what they ment, I also know people don't understand what you have to say for reasons I now know they are totally legitimate.
Calm down, support ADVANTAGES of your material of choice to others, don't support DISADVANTAGES of the material of choice OF others. It wont bring you to the same point...
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Please explain how they are a monopoly? No one is forcing you to buy Cisco switches or routers. Its not like Cisco equipment only works with tcp/ip, or they suddenly rewrite tcp/ip so that it only works with their routers. If you don't like Cisco then buy something from Nortel or 3com. Like I said before no one is forcing Cisco equipment on you. Tcp/ip is an established standard, any brand of router or switch should work.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
-Elendale (Why waste time learning/ When ignorance is immediate? -Hobbes)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
These days truely do remind me of the 1850's where people thought the industrial revolution was about using inventions like the cotton gin to expand slavery to the western territories and maximize gain from it. In a way, the same is true today, they think the internet is about leveraging vast copyright empires rather than the unowned uncontrolled free flow of information.
If history is any indicatior, they will not learn until it is too late, and the consequences will be unbearable. Which is why we really do need to oppose copyrights at any cost. As we already know, the consequences of these beliefs in the 1860's was the US civil war. It came about at a time when we were just developing modern industrial warfare, without having devised defenses yet. Many consider it the "bloodiest" war in history, and it lost more lives for America than WW1 and WW2 combined.
David
Saying that we created this battle is like saying that blackes caused the civil war. The simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with a small group of eliete people trying to make a profit, but trying to make it at the expense of other individual liberties is unaccepatble at any cost.
With AOL and even CISCO, copyrights and patents are being used as leverage to controll peoples behavior, the information they're exposed to, and the way they use that knowledge. The real answer is to get rid of copyrights and patents, but this does not mean that the "plantation masters" hold no responsibility for their actions. We need to get them under controll asap at any cost - lest we face consequences previous generations did.
David
HAHAHA... I'm making fun of that fact smart-a.. :-P
And if you are to place such ridiculous remarks about anyone you should let yourself be known cowardly bastard.
Stupid people are a nuisance to society and should be exterminated. Perhaps we can use the iridium satellites to help us do that :)
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
Okay, I'll play devil's advocate here for a minute...
/root]# man girls
What if AOL released a Linux client? Would you stop ranting and suddenly start raving about this genial corporation that is jumping on the bandwagon?
Is it simply an issue of AOL being sour grapes simply because they're out of our reach as Linux users? Sheesh. AOL hardly holds a monopoly on the Internet--they are simply extremely popular among newbies and illiterates. Is that all bad? Is it bad that they are providing their own content? Not entirely. If they start blocking their members from viewing anything on the Web aside from exclusive AOL/Time-Warner content, then we can start worrying. Right now, tho, I think the suits understand that proprietary content and connection methods equate to unhappy users which ultimately results in the absence of users.
I see an AOL Linux client within the next year.
-----------
[root@jupiter
Possibly because companies get to be big and successful by doing unethical things. If a company isn't evil, its less likely to succeed. The main reason that small companies are generally viewed as more ethical is that they have to be more competetive, less likely to screw the user. That, and they wield less power, and thus have less potential for doing damage. Also, power does not necessarily corrupt. It simply attracts the corrupt.
<sarcasm>Yeah, and that's not something you'd be forced to do... they wouldn't have a single bit of control of your life... no way.</sarcasm>
They don't control the world, you can still leave the country, but that doesn't mean they dont control your life. If you're forced to leave the country to get your own free choice and free will, then they have a very big control of your life.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
May I remind you that that is 5% of the web, read by 95% of the american users.
Also i strongly doubt that:
1. 95% of all americans use or will use AOL.
2. AOL could constrain all those users to only 5% of the web.
Also, most of what I've seen of AOL users on the net (IRC, web, etc) have been clueless idiots who think their being "anonymous" makes it ok for them to ruin stuff for others. If they wanna keep those users off to themeselves, ok by me. The rest of the AOL users would continue to not give a shit about AOL's start pages and browse like they used to. Your numbers are clearly extaggered.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
AOL will never own the Internet. The beautiful thing about the Internet is that no one will ever own it. Slashdot will not disappear, even if AOL/Time Warner wanted it to. AOL merely tries to provide its customers with quality content and a means for getting to it. They could try to limit what all of their customers see, but they would lose more than they could gain from doing that. Imagine if Sony tried to sell television sets that only tuned to three or four channels. People would buy another brand. AOL/Time Warner is in a similar predicament. They will continue to let their customers access the entire Internet because they have to.
True, as the Internet becomes more and more accessible, Slashdot and other niche sites will attract a smaller and smaller amount of the net public as a percentage, but in truth, there will actually be more and more people coming to the niche sites. If someone has an interest in a particular subject, he will always be able to look to the web for answers.
If AOL decides that it only cares about the mainstream, then that is their business. As long as there are people willing to provide content to a more focused group, that group will have the option of coming. They might even prosper if AOL continues to miscalculate the power of focus. At any rate, future generations will not be deprived of Slash-like sites. Look at television. When I was growing up, there were 4 channels available in my house. Then came cable, which brought that number to almost eighteen channels. It was difficult to imagine a world with much more than that. I couldn't tell you how many channels are available today. The Media Giants have figured out that by focusing on a narrower group, they can attract people and make money. In the future, more niche sites will be available, not less. AOL cannot stop the future.
-c.l.mayfield
The SEC has an extensive database of public documents they have recieved.
I'm not saying AOL's list is incomplete -- intentionally or by mistake -- but it is a PR site and as such can't be as reliable as the SEC itself.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I agree. In the same way that Microsoft has pushed its browser, AOL/Time-Warner could push its music or videos or... The key here is that they haven't yet and might never. We should keep an eye on them as should the DOJ because they have the ability to be much worse than Microsoft.
That depends on whether a court thinks Rob is a public figure.
If he's not a public figure, number 5 is just 4+1, aka, not important. If he is a public figure, then yep, there has to be some damage to reputation.
I can see both sides of trying to figure out if he's a public figure. I'd err on the side of not being a public figure however.
No sig is worth reading.
AC, I personally think you're a troll. :)
For some reason, it seems more rule than exception that small computer and internet related basement-companies that start to expand at exponential rate sooner or later get megalomaniac (= want to either take over the world by monopolizing, put an end to all privacy or both).
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
as much as they suck they keep on growing, how do they do it?
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
i think you are exactly right, linux can be way too powerful, because unlike aol and ms, it doesn't totally suck
Don't be mean or my friend Oog will smash your head
The lawsuits involving MPAA include Time Warner. IF you search time.com, there are 0 references to DeCSS.
Time Digital covers Cphack, the Stephen King Book thing, Napster, but why, I ask No references to DeCSS...
One might think they are trying to keep a lid on it.
-m
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne)
First of all the car market is very differnt from the internet media market in that there is a stupendous cost of entry into the car market. This means that there will naturally be very few large companies in the market (it is much more efficent for a big company to produce cars then a small one). Secondly what about BMW japenese companies etc...
Right now no new car companies are entering the market not because of some monopolistic stranglehold the big companies have but for the more prosaic (and better for the customer) reason that they are satisfying the customers. Look what happened when american car companies fell into a rut making the same shitty cars...the japenese car companies came along and outcompetied them. Sure it took awhile but this is because making a car is a long complicated buisness which is very expensive (in contrast to a journalist sitting down and typing an article).
Suppose AOL-Timewarner somehow managed to come out with various news-brands to satisfy the diversity interest in media (which I argue is much stronger then in cars which most people car only if it goes fast looks cool and doesn't break). Okay so if they are indeed satisfying the market we must assume management is giving the differnt brands editorial freedom (o.w. they would share the same opnions and people would go find other news sources).
So now people have a wide variety of media outlets with editoral freedom what does it matter if they are indeed owned by time-warner? Moreover, how would AOL-timewarner stop people from going to places like salon.com etc...? You can only run one operating system at once (and have to pay if you want to run extras) but you can go to as many media sites as you wish too.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
...
AOL doesn't own napster, does it? My Bad. I meant Nullsoft, and all their many ventures that, in one way or another, are counter-Time Warner.
is whats its really all about, bottom line. These 2 large companies panda to those in typical often technophobic consumer culture. I find it interesting certainly the possibilities of this marriage of merchants. Those who read such culturally forward thinking sites as http://slashdot.org and http://www.2600.com don't take the views of the global society on face value. Instead we think for ourselves, evalulate and search for traps.
In this way techno-culture is really like the best of New Aged culture in one... healthy skepticism of half assed claims, both from the large companies and back alley publications. I believe this sort of person is what these large companies are really afraid of, and the stereotype of the informed Linux user is what they are really boycotting by disallowing Linux users.
Has anyone thought about integrating the capability into Mozilla to spoof the operating system info sent by the browser? I've never used AOL myself, but surely they need to get Operating System info in some way. Just a thought...
Ok, what am I getting at? I'm in need of volunteers to help with a site to help in keeping the corporate media juggernauts in check. I'd like to find a few motivated individuals to help do a news media site that is dedicated to being a watchdog, keeping an eye out for fabrications and half-truths. So far, it is a blank slate in need of volunteers and time: www.NewPolice.org. Waddya think?
Adam
www.NewPolice.org
The other issue is the number of stations/newspapers that do little more then parrot wire services stories. You want an extreme example of that in the internet world? Go to espn.com and then go to cnnsi.com. Supposedly these two are competing with each other. Yet quite often I see stories that are word for word the same. So two sources of information. Two very similar sources of info.
On the issue of journlists. You don't need to tell them what to say if you only hire your type of people. No need to censor people who will self-censor. You don't want stories about the tobacco industry then you don't hire people who think it's a problem. You hire people who think people/companies should be allowed to do what they want and that government should stay out. It's not very hard.
I'm surprised that it has taken so long for slashdot to react to this and realise that the AOL/Time Warner merger is ten times as dangerous as anything Microsoft ever tried to do. AOL/Time Warner are clearly going to be the "big bad corporation" of this decade, just like Microsoft was the "big bad corporation" of the last decade. In today's world, controlling the mass medias is equivalent to controlling what people think on average. You're revolted that the MPAA and various big industries were able to lobby the DMCA? Well AOL/Time Warner won't even have to lobby. They'll just present it so that a majority of americans will willingly vote for the laws AOL/Time Warner want to see in effect. I believe AOL and Time Warner should not have been allowed to merge, and I believe that even now that they have merged they should be split. Daniel
All moderators must have a BCC (Blood Crack Content) below .05% by volume AT ALL TIMES, or be subject to one year's imprisonment and up to $100,000 in fines. Possibly more if the crack is of the cheap $3 variety that seems to be so popular among the moderators these days. Note that this moderator probably would have just been shot on sight.
This AC was responding to the elitist attitude in its parent post. What's so offtopic about that?
Let's talk about slander:
1. You did this with malice -- intent to defame.
2. It's probably not true.
3. You posted this with reckless disregard to the truth.
4. Rob could drag your ass to court.
AOL/Time Warner are trying to hit the most people posible, but what's wrong with that? I would rather sell to 50,000,000 people than 500,000 people.
Now that being said my primary news source for wold news is NPR/BBC. (But I do check the CNN web site every day)
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
There are two things at work here. I'll take on the original article 1st and follow up with the stuff from this feature.
"AOL is powerful and can control huge amounts of content for vast numbers of people, so they should be broken up into more manageable pieces."
It's a nice idea but that's not how this thing works. Once upon a time IBM was the big bad antitrust bully. They practically invented FUD. These days nobody calls them a danger to anyone. Nobody considers IBM as a problem to freedom or to competition. Never mind that in real earnings IBM is 10X the size of Microsoft and by other measures ( number of employees, Property owned etc.. ) is even larger than that. Anty trust is about bullying the little goys, not simply having power.
The second matter is the control of information on the Internet. Simply put "It won't happen". MS wants it. AOL/TW wants. Every major corp wants to control the internet. Each has a shot at trying, none has a chance of success.
The problem is that the internet is the place for the tiny niche. If you are into nude Hermaphrodite wrestling then you can try find the other 4 people in the world that share your obsession. This is the power of the internet and simply owning a bunch of studios and most of the good writers isn't going to help.
The problem with the net is that Location isn't so important. Time Warner got to be powerful by making sure it owned many of the channels carried by your typical cable provider. On the net every provider can carry all the "channels". AOL/TW's attraction is therefore those items that they product themselves which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much.
Sure they own the Matrix but would you join AOL if that was your only attraction ? It takes more than that. The same goes for all the other content they own. Each time they move something behind the AOL service all they will achieve is pissing off those users who like that item. Paramount was forcibly made aware of this 2 years ago when they tried to close Star Trek fan sites and put everything under paramount.com which only worked with IE at the time.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
No, it's not if they have it, it's how they use it. If they don't use it to control your life (which I think is a bit far-fetched for AOL/Time-Warner, you can just leave the country...), then let them have it. For example, if you're running Linux, you're pretty much at the mercy of Linus. He's very dictatorial over the kernel. If you're using the Internet, I can almost guarantee you your traffic goes over Cisco's lines. They have incredible power, but they don't use it to harm you.
Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet. The Internet: Designed for UNIX.
1. It slows down the Internet's ability to disrupt the status quo. Time Warner, as an old-media publisher, won't let smaller online projects disrupt their old-media revenue streams. So no Gnutella, for starters. It will be made abundantly clear that protecting old media is the way to get ahead at AOL/Time-Warner.
2. It pollutes the Internet with political influence. Becuase Time-Warner is heavily dependent on government approvals and licenses in broadcasting, it toes the line: CNN stands for Clinton News Network. We're all surfing to avoid that stuff, and here comes a ton of it.
3. It makes the likeliest alternative to Microsoft hegemony AOL hegemony. And that means not just a lock on technology in Internet access devices, it means the extension of old-media monopolistic control of distribution to the Internet. Yup, it could be that bad.
What's worse? Microsoft has learned going against the Internet amounts to urinating upwind. AOL has learned no such lesson, being the only online service company to successfully move their proprietary protocols and content forward into the Internet era. That plus the Time-Warner old media bad mojo is much worse than Microsost could ever be. IMHO Microsoft will focus its business back onto computing and software and continue to get rid of media/Web holdings (as they did with Expedia). AOL's aim is to control as much content and content-distribution as possible. Ick.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Thats just stupid. Do you really thing a linux user would be interested in AOL's 'exclusive content' let alone in AOL itself? It is obvious that anyone using an alternative OS is not AOL's target market. And as for handicapped people, it is not AOL's responsibility to accomodate them. Am I to assume you also complain that Tommy Hilfiger does not produce shirts wearable by the immensely obese?
Do you think Rob Malda and Jeff Bates would ever have been allowed to do their schtick on AOL or through Time-Warner? Would Time-Warner have tolerated -- let alone supported -- freshmeat? What about other sites that cover Linux and Open Source news, like Linux Today, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, and all the rest?
Excuse me, but what in gods name does Time-Warner have to do with small websites like these? Absolutely nothing. There is not one thing Time-Warner could have done to prevent Slashdot from starting. You seem to be unaware of the fact that Slashdot was not started by some publishing conglomerate as a moneymaking venture. Time-Warner (or anyone else for that matter) does not have to power to stop a couple kids with a web server from saying whatever they want to say.
Maybe you should wait until some type of transgression actually occurs before you denounce the big bad corporations with such vigor. There is no reason to believe that what was a business move will become some internet controlling monster. It is already clear that even 'average' people (who you imply would not seek out anything other than what they were spoonfed by their AOL/T-W masters) want choice. Look at cable and satellite TV. What was previously dissemenation via only 4 major networks is now a mishmash of different genres, with more choice available than ever before. And pretty much anyone can get a local cable access show.
I will give AOL/Time-Warner the benefit of the doubt here, and I urge other Slashdot readers to give some thought to issues like these rather than just nodding and agreeing that large corporations are bad.
..do you suggest we legislate AOL/Time Warner into the ground much like the government is trying to do with Microsoft? That's ridiculous! Monopolies can be built on the fact that they use unsound business practices, but at the same time, they can be built by consumers CHOOSING TO USE one thing more than any other.
It's called a free market. If the market didn't like AOL, then people wouldn't be using it. Something else would appear as competition, and defeat them.
Regardless, it's not like all of your news/entertainment content comes from AOL.. News Corp, the Hearst company, Viacom, and numerous others are very large and produce a great amount of content. If you don't like AOL/Time Warner, fine, don't view their content. Having the government step into every situation where a company has gotten "too big" for the outsider is silly. It reeks of sour grapes, especially when the person doing the ranting touts something else that didn't succeed in direct competition with the winner.
-s
---- noi non potemo aver perfetta vita senza amici -- Dante
However, the vast majority of people who have access to small satellite dishes around the world do have access to CNN and CNN International, which of course is owned by Turner Networks, a division of Time-Warner, soon to merge with AOL.
In short, most of the world recognizes the CNN "brand." Heck, most of the world's leaders try to catch CNN for news--it's only a bit later that the BBC is competing with their own satellite news channel.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
You wake up in the morning when your State-supplied radio starts piping State-controlled news into your ears (at an unchangable 7:10 everywhere). You get out of bed and put put on your State-supplied clothing (two sizes: too large and too small) and eat your State-supplied breakfast. Your State-supplied car is already on in your garage (clothes take 15 minutes to put on, breakfast 11 minutes to eat. At least that's what the State says) and it automatically filled the gas tank last night (3.49 rubles/liter).You drive down the road to your job for the State.
Gee, sounds just like communist russia to me...
--
I agree, my grandparents use AOL and often ask me to come fix it for them. I usually have no idea where to begin. Evertything in that app is obfuscated and candy coated. AOL of course doesn't use standard PPP or TCP/IP, they have their own network protocols which means you can ONLY connect to them using AOL software.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop isn't a drop in the bucket compared to AOL and Time Warner. Windows doesn't edit text documents to only say nice friendly things about Windows and Microsoft, it also doesn't really interperate the way to view media. It doesn't censor JPEGs of GIFs if it doesn't agree with them. TW and AOL can and do this! Besides censorship AOL now is in a position to increase their user base 5 fold. TW transmits information to millions upon millions of people every single day, now AOL has access to all these people. AOL has always made their money from marketing, they sell all the information about their users and make billions off of it, the merger with TW means they have that many more people to sell information on. Not only do they have lots more information to sell, they're also in a position to stick AOL into everyone's house whether they want it or not.
Does anyone remember the stories of the AOL set-top box that were circulating around? Lets say that came to fruition and they told TW to replace all their cable boxes with AOL's box. This is almost always done at the customers expense by the way. Now all of TW's cable subscribers watch AOL-TV. Ads in the corners of the screen, some interactive WebTV crap, and a detailed database about everything every household does on their AOL box. There isn't a whole lot that can be done about this either because I don't know of many cities where the coax lines aren't owned by the cable companies. Some cities have imposed that the cable co's open up their loops but not every city. Even if all cable loops in the country were open and galavanting freely in the grass what would keep the megacorp of TW and AOL from buying them all up? Oooooh the DOJ might slap their hand and "break" them up. All the DOJ stands for is "Don't Offend Janet", they aren't going to whip out the bulldogs in the matter of a media conglomerate. Windows was an easy trial because they cheated and didn't even cheat that well. DO you think TW has become so large and been around so long without knowing how to cow politicians? The 21st century customer has new and improved buying power with a clean non-complaining tone.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
BBC WorldService gives a more worldwide view, since their target market is NOT the U.S., they have more stories from Africa, India, former British colonies, etc. which aren't even covered by mainstream press.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Alot of stuff /may/ lead to a worse result than microsoft desktop monopoly. Cisco control of routers, ebay's control of online auctions, amazons control of online bookselling, martian invasion, Stalin returning from grave.. I suggest as a home assignment project that every /. reader write a feature on one such threat that may turn out as bad as Microsoft's monopoly. Yawn.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
I must deal with RCN's awful service, or wait for DSL to come to the inner city at comparable prices.
Why does everyone think that DSL is expensive?
Granted, its not available everywhere by any means, but neither are cable modems. I have Time-Warner here (they have a monopoly), and they told me that they have no definitive plans at this time to offer RoadRunner service in my area.
My DSL provider is $50 a month, and I'm getting 784K, but I guess that is dependant on your distance from the CO.
Lots of others (Ameritech, Covad, etc.) are offering DSL at comparable prices.
My journal has hot
I don't think that that's the point of the article. The point is that they DO, at this moment, control a great deal of what people read, hear, and see, and this is a Bad Thing (tm). Perspectives on a story are often as important as the story itself, and if only one perspective is available to a reader (or viewer, depending on the case), then the public loses.
crush-
Thank you for your comments. I do agree with some of your points.
I want to point out that I am not arguing that the media in general is 'better' or more diverse or whatever now than it was then. I think the media has and always will be biased, towards specific nations, towards corporations, towards politicians, towards its readership, etc. This is inescapable. For a good example of this, take a look at today's Salon articles. The newspapers in Miami aren't reporting that some of the Miami relatives have criminal pasts. Why? Because a large portion of their readership is from Cuba, many of their advertisements come from Cuban-owned companies, etc.
The point is that the source of your information is at least as important as the information itself. That being said, I understand your point that many (who knows what the number might be) people just click on their AOL icon and blindly trust whatever shows up on their homepage. I agree this is a problem, and I have no idea what to do about it.
AOL hasn't really done anything wrong, and who knows if they will? And if they do do something wrong, who's going to report on it? This is all very sticky...
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
I think the point was not that you can't put up a site, but that even if you do, TW/AOL won't let you see it because they'll have control of all of the methods of getting to your site. Or, possibly, even any methods you'd have of advertising your site.
Of course, I don't really think that Rob is even really valid in this post. It sounds like he's either paranoid or wants to get us paranoid. Even if "the Man" controls all the top search engines that doesn't go to sites TW/AOL doesn't like, someone will make one that does. Hell, they could even make it not go to the TW/AOL sites at all.
That, and they'd have to do a lot to actually make everything on the net as controlled as Rob was saying.
--
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
Please, spare us the platitudes. You make the government. The government makes the rules - the companies have to play by them. If they don't like the Sherman act then they can set up in a different country that doesn't have an equivalent. The companies are more than happy to have rules (copyright and patents for example) that make them money, but cry foul when other rules may threaten their revenues. Sorry guys - its a package deal.
As for the homily to the poor families of the employees of these law-breaking companies: why not defend bank robbers - after all they broke the law to make money but they have families too, dammit!
4. Attempts to suppress a Linux distribution
When you add the Soap Salesman's newest aquisition, Time/Warner to the mix....
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
For decades the conservative standard was conformity, everyone wanted to be in some sort of group to feel accepted. Now people are beginning to expand the little niche ideas and interests they have on the side and delve into them further by finding interest groups online or otherwise and going further with them. Its alot like that excellent Yahoo commercial where the punk guy is sewing and his friends laugh at him so he finds people online who share his interests (in this case a club of incredibly hot looking women) and he goes further with his interests. Eventually humanity and social interests will get more and more complex and differentiated, its rooted in entropy. Niche interests like carnivorous plants, odd pets, etc are booming as well as simultaneously niche interests like scat or pedo are booming as well. But we gotta take the bad with the good. And yes, people ARE leaving AOL as soon as they learn the basics and want decent faster net access so just like a blackhole, AOL will dissolve eventually even if it takes a long time. Its such the Disneyland of the internet that things WILL change, its just a matter of time.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Check out This link
I mean, if they bring LINUX to the masses, can they really be evil?
A: You betcha!
I also live in an area where cable means Time Warner. When they first introduced cable modem service here, they made it clear that they would only install on Win 95, Win 98 and Mac OS. But if you talked to anyone behind the scenes there they made the full story clear. To cut down on service calls, they wanted to validate the installation while their installation people were on site. They had software for those OSs and only those OSs. Linux, FreeBSD, et al did not have sufficient market share to justify training their installers for it. But they didn't care if you wanted to use another OS after your machine was installed. In the past few months they have even introduced a discounted self-install option which would probably be ideal for the average Linux user.
Officially, Time Warner does not provide support for alternate OSs. Locally, they run a newsgroup specifically for the people who want to. Their web master, who uses BeOS himself, actively participates in it. In fact, I would guess that I know at least a third of the regular participants in the group personally. Unfortunately, that is an indication of the small size of the group and the relatively small number of people who are connecting to Time Warner from alternative OSs. I think given that, the level of informal support that they give is admirable. Even though we don't fit their business model, they haven't shut the door. That's really all I ask.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Those monopolies which you list are so heavily regulated by various governments that they are, in a sense, part of public government, and not privately-run companies motivated solely by the quest for increased profit. Otherwise, your local electric company would charge as high a price as the market could bear, and poor people would spend their nights in the dark. (For a case in point read chapters 27 and 28 of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, "The Path To Power.")
In distinction, what this article is describing is a news monopoly which is not regulated by the government, and through it, by the voting population. Instead, the news media to a great extent control that government, by shaping the opinions of the voters. The whole threat of privately-managed, unregulated monopolies is that "we the market" can't "cut these folks down to size."
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Nice shot, mkwilbur! Thanks!
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Yeah, it's real neato. It used to be, before I got a TW cable modem running into a $250 P-100 running Linux and ipmasq, that the only way people in my office could get to the internet, and thus to email, was by running a modem into the telephone line. Several people had AOL accounts of their own, not knowing any better. Well, they'd get hold of a modem and grab their AOL CD, and install away on the PC at their desk, so they could do that email thing right? and that Satanic AOL Adapter would insensibly insinuate itself deep into their PC's system, and the next time they booted up, gee, they couldn't get to their files on the I: drive any more, is the network down?
But that was a version or two back, and the AOL interface might have changed some since then, maybe even for the better. I mean, surely all the guys that wrote the one I had such fun with have all been brutally murdered by now, haven't they? And it so happens that I have to put together a new computer tomorrow at work, and there has got to be one of those "500 hours FREE!" CDs of theirs lying around, so, aren't I curious? Hmmm....naah.
You know, these business idiots can never leave well enough alone, and even now you bet there are memos fluttering around the offices of TW/AOL about how they can "synergize" the combination of AOL and TW's cable modem service. I use TW's RoadRunner at three sites. It works great and I like it, but I have to wonder and unhappily anticipate, how and when are they going to screw it all up?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Fighting with an almost inexaustable supply of money. Fighting with time on their side (every day they delay, more peecees ship with IE). The focus should remain on ms anti-competitive tactics. Ms should be made to suffer for it's decisions to use it's monopoly to stomp all comers.
Then, and only then, will a message be sent to other companies (AOL included) that the tactics that ms uses will not be tolerated.
Remember, United we stand, Divided we fall.
___
"You will be able to have cable access on many platforms, Linux, Windows, even OS/2, you will not be required to use AOL's interface either"
For now, anyway. Cable is a monopoly and cable modem is cheaper and more widely available than DSL. Do you honestly think Time Warner won't eventually force its cable modem customers to use AOL? It's happening to Netscape's Netcenter users.
Where I live (Boston's Dorchester neighborhood), we actually have a choice of cable modem providers: RCN or RoadRunner. RoadRunner, a joint venture between Media One and Time Warner, is a much better provider (according to reviews on World Wide Wait, Epinions, and Deja.com), but I can't shake the feeling that RoadRunner will be absorbed by AOL in the not-too-distant future. So if I want high-speed internet access, I must deal with RCN's awful service, or wait for DSL to come to the inner city at comparable prices.
I don't think I'll be retiring my modem anytime soon.
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
Anyway, it could be easer then you think.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
As you noted, monopolies are granted by the government. When they've outlived their usefulness, they can be taken away by the government as well.
Honesty. Loyalty. Kindness. Laughter. Generosity. Magic!
Unless AOL/TW has the ability to shut down Slashdot, their power is only marginal.
The fact is, the Internet was not one company's scheme to make money. It was built for communication, and evolved only because hundreds of people put their time and effort into it. No one company, name, or brand has ever controlled all the content on the Internet, save for the burgeoning years.
So what if AOL can influence millions of people who use AOL to read their content? Everyone still has a choice, and until AOL can take that choice away, like how Microsoft took away the choice for desktop operating systems on new PC's, their power is feeble.
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
The people who wrote the quotes you mentioned are assholes, but not the one your replied to.
There's no reason for a sig here.
for a company to control the web they do not need to control web sites or search engines. all they need is the tool with which you view them. so we're all safe as long as the open source community doesn't get together and improve on an exsisting web browser, creating a really kick ass browser that Aol/Time-Warner can then buy up. 'till that happens the web is still free
It's not even the amount of power it has. Whether a company is good or bad depends on what it DOES with that size and power.
Agreed. All does who doubt this need not look further than Cisco. It is the most valuable company in the US and it's equipment runs most of the Internet and yet everyone has nothing but good things to say about the company.
That said I doubt that AOL/Time Warner will be as ethical as Cisco but condemning them out of hand simply for being a large company is illogical.
I also live in an area where Time Warner has the Cable TV monopoly. Last year they started announcing the coming availability of Cable Modems, which we were really looking forward to, after waiting on our modem too many times. The original word was that the new service would be available in mid-winter.
It is now mid-spring, and we are no closer to seeing cable modem service. In addition, we don't expect to see it in this area anytime soon, since if TW is as service oriented in their Cable Modem line as they are with their Cable TV, then I don't want any part of it. (Cable rates go up almost monthly, and available channels always seem to decrease.)
When Mindspring began offering ADSL in our area, we grabbed that immediately. (Their service is good, and they DO support all platforms). Not as fast as cable, but fast enough.
We also discontinued ALL cable TV service with Time Warner (except for minimum basic service, for local channels), and installed a satellite.
AOL has always had a bad reputation with the computer knowledgable. But at least they provide an honest service (no matter how masses oriented). Time Warner is dishonest.
Just my opinion
Gonzo
believe that Slashdot has as wide an audience
as Wired or Salon? It's one thing to appreciate
open source software, but it's entirely
another to become outraged that businesses
have profitmaking as a motivation.
All business is not evil, and neither is AOL. AOL meets
the needs of a lot of people, which is,
plain and simple, why it exists.
Feel free to blame the hype, hysteria, big-business, desire for profit, etc.,
but realize that linux is a minority on the desktop for a number of very good reasons.
Rather than complaining that AOL doesn't work with linux,
develop some cool software for linux
that helps to make the platform desirable to
the masses.
Amazing magic tricks
The real info is in a second link to a fairly long boring article in Brill's content describing the multi-corporation hype used to push the Austin Powers movie.
I rented the original movie due the the first round of hype, and personally found it to be one of the least funny movies ever made.
It was interesting that when the second movie came out, every publication in America jumped on the bandwagon. Salon among others had five articles in one day and they weren't even owned by the same conglomerate.
At the time I was curious how they could afford to bribe every publication in America. Apparently if you own half of them, the rest will get in line thru some mutual back-scratching process.
It seems a lot of people actually liked the movie, but it intrigued me that I never found a negative review.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
>It isn't the size of a company that makes it
>good or bad. It's not even the amount of power
>it has. Whether a company is good or bad depends
>on what it DOES with that size and power
I don't think using terms like 'good' or 'bad' about a company is appropriate. As I see it there are profitable companies and unprofitable companies. Of course a company don't necessarily need to be bad in order to make profits, but if necessary moral issues are secondary.
Admittedly some companies seem to make decisions based on moral, but I'm quite sure that they only do it because they believe it will pay off sooner or later, not in gratitude but in cash.
I mean: which NEWSStation in the USA does bring news just because it's news and NOT because it's good for the viewership figures? Anyone?...
Face it, in Europe we have public TV channels, not owned by commercial companies, who bring mostly independant news, just because it's news, not because it sells more adds or will attrackt more viewers. In the USA however, everything that's on TV is there to attrackt more viewers, thus more ADDS, and thus more MONEY. If 'news' isn't selling enough it's not broadcasted, period.
So why are you so upset about this merger? does it change anything to the system already in place? nothing at all!
Large media-companies are always a topic for 'single minded propaganda' discussions, but please keep in focus of what your world in the USA already has and suffers from. The AOL-TimeWarner merger is nothing new or more threatening to the average people than the stations already in place.
If you are so concerned about a company controlling media or content, perhaps you should starting to get a bit worried about a company who REALLY controls the media of the internet: Cisco.
Or is that not close enough to the 'anti-MS' discussion?....
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Simplicity I can appreciate. After all, there's a reason why programmers are so rare: it's a damn hard job! But simplicity is not what AOL offers. It's conformity and ignorance. The AOL service does nothing to even attempt to educate those who use it (ever seen an AOL site dedicated to education on such things as static vs. dynamic IP? Using POP mail? etc.).
I had to use AOL for a while and my real complaint (other than the fact that they won't buy enough hardware to handle their customers. Right on the CD it says "availability may be limited, especially at peak times") is that the simplicity comes in the form of being limited to what they want you to see. Most people don't know a real website when they see one. Oh well, I'll quit ranting now...
-Elendale (frustrated)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
People seem to think that because Microsoft was dangerous, AOL-Time Warner could not be, or vice versa. Any concentration of power, be it in government or a private institution, is inherently dangerous. The conveniences that come from concentrated power always must be weighed against the abuses of that power.
...
Replacability is the issue, it requires careful monitoring for network effects. In the case of AOL, all sorts of abuse is possible. First, because AOL now has a pretty huge cable infrastructure, they have the power to subtly stifle non AOL content. If it is bad to link an operating system with applications, then it is doubly bad to link content to the network that hosts it. Microsoft threatened speech for software developers, AOL/Time Warner threatens free speech for everyone.
While the abuse of power may not be present in AOL, it is entire reasonable to view AOL / Time Warner with considerable alarm. The benefits of the merger do not conceivably merit the amount of power they have accrued as a result of it.
This does not say that because AOL / Time Warner is worse than Microsoft's actions are ok. Whether you got shot in the head ten times or one time doesn't change the fact that you will probably die.
Microsoft should be allowed to bundle open APIs but not applications. Should be allowed to add whatever programmatic interface they want to Windows, but not bundle any application with it. If necessary, break the company up along those lines.
But
The AOL / Time Warner Merger should not have been approved, and in time will prove itself to be even bigger disaster than MS-DOS.
This is my sig.
--- Confound the government. Think.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
There is information available on AOL that tries to educate users, but I agree, it's very limited and never goes in deep about subjects like those you mention.
The really wacky part is that AOL likes to treat its technical support staff the same way. (I know, I'm writing this post on an AOL computer at a call center while talking to AOL members) AOL has tools that tell us exactly what to do "and that will fix the problem".
Do we see where this is going?
Yes, that RARELY if ever fixes the problem, and at the point that dumbly quoting to a user what the screen tells us ends, and actual human knowledge and ingenuity takes over all of the tech support staff are sorely undereducated.
It seems almost as if AOL wants to hide the technical workings of their products from their own technical staff. They want undereducated sweet voices to repeat what a poorly programmed tool says more than they want actual, intelligent, educated technicians to fix problems.
Now if they're this way with their own staff, do we really want them deciding what is important for the media world? (he said, desperately trying to avoid a -1 offtopic)
Don't just give me a fish, teach me to fish!
-MadDreamer
Try this sometime - open up the Wall St. Journal to the NYSE listings and run your finger down the list of companies. Pretend that you're Santa Clause and make a naughty and nice list. Pretend that you have a workshop of genious elves at your disposal who can develop market-shattering technologies for good little multinationals.
Would you give Boeing a ream of pattents to practical hyperspace travel? Glaxo-Welcome the cure for cancer? Food replicator technology to ADM? Quantum computing to Intel? AI of human intellegence to Microsoft?
My stock portfolio aside, I certainly wouldn't grant any boons to a multinational. I submit that it is the size that matters. I'm not anti-corportate per se, but the very nature of decision making when billions of dollars of other people's money are involved forces large companies to behave in certain ways and not in others. There is no question of how AOL will behave now that it controlls Time Warner. It will behave in the way anyone with billions to loose and trillions to gain would behave, and you can be absolutely certain that your best insterests are not in mind.
Large corporations are inherantly agressive organizations. This is a great thing when that agressive drive leads to competition among buissnesses for the favor of customers. The aggressive nature of capitalism is what makes it work. The key, though, is that this agressive behavior is among buissnesses, not among buissnesses and customers, buissnesses and government or buissnesses and the law. If anything other than another large company fights a large company for control of something, the result will be very, very bad.
AOL doesn't really have anyone to compete with, and therefore should not exist in its present form. I say this not because it might turn out to be dangerous, but because it must turn out to be dangerous. How dangerous is a function of AOL's size, the determination of other companies, the alertness of government, the justness the law and the awareness of consumers.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
What caused the microsoft monopoly? Microsofts agressive tactics? Yes, but these tactics would never have worked had not there been a perceived value to standardization. Microsoft's threats to DELL and other companies only worked because not being allowed to use windows was a major threat...it wasn't acceptable to go buy a different operating system.
In effect once microsoft had a certain market share it was guaranteed a monopoly because others would buy the software even if it was a worse value just for compatability reasons (hence the reason why this market is in need of government regulation.)
On the other hand the media market values diversity. If all your friends watch CNN you might want to watch ABC merely because you can then talk about what you have seen. It is for this reason that AOL-TIMe-WARNER can never become a huge monopoly. Their very success will generate a market for their competitors (those people who want something differnt).
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The question is not whether there will be alternative content. The question is whether we will know about it. Frankly, people are sheep. I'm a sheep, chances are so are you. But, that's unavoidable. There is too much out there for everyone to be an expert at everything, so we have to be mainstream somewhere in order to concentrate on what we love. So, people will start off with AOL. That's fine, though, because they can always switch once they find out that the alternative is better than the majority, right? not necessarily.
If AOL doesn't give access to Slashdot or similar "hardcore" computer sites via their front end search engine, then most internet users will never find out that there is an alternative, and that AOL's "news" is actually propaganda. Propaganda relies on people not knowing that that is what they are being subjected to.
So people will continue to get online with AOL, browse with Netscape, listen to music with WinAmp, and watch Time Warner TV over Time Warner cable lines and use Time Warner 'Net connections.
Whether any of those choices are a Bad Thing or not is not the point. The point is that by controling so much information flow, AOL has the power to censor information, and to keep us from knowing that it was censored. I try to be as apathetic as possible, and that still scares the hell out of me. Especially since the government has continually proven that they have no idea what they should do about technology, but continue to make assanine laws anyway, just to give the appearance of progress.
Wow. I'm bitchy today.
MalSyned
Actually, we are not at the mercy of Linus. That is one of the most valuable parts of open source software. If we as a comunity don't like what is happening to the linux kernel under Linus's rule, we can take the whole damn thing and give it to someone else to work with.
/dev/null.
In our community, power is based on the respect and admiration of your peers, not how much money you can toss around, how many lawyers can protect you, or how many ideas you "own." All of the power that anyone in the open source community weilds can be taken away in a heartbeat, so anyone who has power has to use it wisely or, no matter how hard they worked to get it, they will lose it.
Patents, Copywrite protection, Intelectual property, and the control over the distribution of ideas: All of these things represent power that *cannot* be taken away, regardless of how that power is used (within the rediculous borders of the laws which allow these powers to exist in the first place.)
If enough people don't like linux, they can take over the operation themselves. But AOL will always own AOL. And Time Warner. And Netscape. And Napster (and, re: napster, btw... what kind of world do we live in where an instititution controls even the means by which you are able to undermine it?)
And the ideas that AOL owns and controls keep anyone else from producing true competition.
Well, I think that's enough of a rant for my first contribution to Slashdot. As always, post positive comments publicly, but direct all criticism to
MalSyned
Microsoft is _vicious_. They're like a rabid wolverine on crack with an uzi. They are a clear and present danger no matter _what_ they try to do, as it is always (1) try to kill somebody or (2) try to trap/extort somebody. They've been wildly ingenious at this and are never ever satisfied- which is shockingly unusual for super-market-leaders, as complacency is really the usual result of that position.
AOL is boring. They can be extremely callous and annoying to their customers, but that wolverine-on-crack approach just is NOT there, not remotely. Does this make them not a threat? Not exactly. They can still exert a chilling effect, but their boring 'follower' joe average culture is infinitely more likely to blandly comply with the pressures of regulation. You wouldn't see AOL forging evidence in an antitrust case. You might see them saying stupid things- that's a lot less dangerous, and my guess is that they would boringly roll any sort of regulation into their bureacracy, probably inconveniencing customers even worse- but that's really not the problem. Such oversight is not about making AOL better for its customers, it's to keep it from rolling over in its sleep and crushing anybody. Compare this with Microsoft and its uzis and enemies lists and strange throbbing pains in its corporate brain which cause it to do violent things when it observes things it doesn't like- and it's really obvious _why_ Microsoft is top priority.
The 'adult supervision' (i.e. government) will get around to AOL when it starts rolling over in its sleep too much. This is probably inevitable. However, it's going to be much more routine than the Microsoft situation, because AOL are essentially followers- they'll boringly jump through whatever hoops are called for, without whining or frothing at the mouth and biting Janet Reno, and that'll be mostly the end of it. Normal monopolies don't go for the throat like Microsoft does.
The "Evil Empire" is now found guilty of marketing to a naive market, and now the AOL empire is going to be prosecuted for catching the other end of the Naive market???
SO were just going to sue *everyone* because they don't know better? Or because they think they have rights to be in business even if people don't want there goods and services??
That may be a bit off the wall, but so is this article. Who is slashdot or even ourselves to judge the 22 million people who appreciate AOL for the simplicity it offers
And most of all, why is AOL wrong for supporting Windows???? After all it *IS* the defacto standard UNTIL something better comes along that makes it easier and fundamentally more intuitive.
You people spend too much time bickering instead of deciding. There is no assembly of truth to operating systems and media giants. If there was to be a breakup, i'd still consider Cisco because they're practically the backbone of the internet, i'd still sue Bell Atlantic more so then AOL.
Everyone has there interests to protect the market they have cornered. And its lawyers and politicians that YOU vote in and YOU higher that give them this right. Laws or not, its YOUR decision and just because people are naive and want simplicity DOESN'T mean they're stupid nor does it mean a company should do whatever they can to refocus on linux because its better.. If it was better why are 22 million people NOT using it?
On the other hand, had this article not even brought up linux i would have considered it as being sightfull. But it plainly turned out to be dumb as Linux is NOT the reason AOL or Microsoft should be change. the Consumer and market is the reason. Had the market been fair, linux could have ousted Microsoft and AOL within a very short time span.. but nope.. we hire more people to make more laws or we just try and break the laws and bicker about how pointless they are.
either way, the linux people are playing just as shamefull as a game as any other business. Overly priced stocks, no profits, .com fever, network appliances, how many times can we reinvent the wheel? If microsoft wasn't innovative then why are we trying to duplicate the features? I would have thought linux would have engineered and new and improved way of computing.. but nope.. we sue or get the government to do it for us.. and now were looking at AOL for our next target.. NICE.. i'm proud to be an american, where atleast i know i'll never have job security no matter how productive or influential of a business i work for.
PS: I don't work for AOL or Time or Microsoft, but if i did, i'd be pissed if the government decides to take away what i worked so hard on for whatever reasons. (monopoly or not, you ARE talking about HUMANS with Respectfull JOBS and CHILDREN and FAMILIES TO FEED)
I have the details here that hilight my experience.
If you painfully remember Microsoft's insertion of your MAC address into all Word documents, you may find this interesting.
Note: This is reality. Upon written, resonable request, I will provide contact information for the guilty parties mentioned in my article.
I find the web-development example weak. The difference between a monopoly on software, like Microsoft, and AOL-TimeWarner, is pretty vast. The major thing I see is this: its pretty simple to set up a web server and make your own pages. I have a server set up next too me, and I'd hardly call myself an expert. On the other hand, if I had no choice about what desktop software to use, between Microsoft's and making my own. Well, lets say I'd probably end up using Microsoft's.
So basically, I don't understand how a huge company can get in the way of web development. Its never going to be as possible to control web content, simply by the fact that it is so easy to create.
Also, one has to consider marketing tactics. So far, nothing AOL/TimeWarner has done has been as distasteful as M$ tactics to create a monopoly and stifle the competition, such making it nearly impossible for PC vendors to ship with non-M$ OSes, etc. the list goes on and on. I think AOL/TimeWarner is far more likely to play by the rules. After all, we've already seen M$ get burned for stretching them, hopefully they won't get off lightly.
Okay, I'll stop rambling now and go eat breakfast
Spyky
I'm sorry, but I feel that this attitude is a detriment to society. Once we start saying things like, "Well, they did it for profits - so they're not bad, they're just a company," then things go down the shithole. Try this, "Well, they just killed those people in that country because they needed cheap labour. They're not bad, they're just making profits." See the problem? Yes, I am exaggerating, but, if left upchecked, that's what it will come to.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
its pretty simple to set up a web server and make your own pages.
...and God help you if you decide to post anything that doesn't coincide with AOL/Time-Warner's cosy middle-class white-bread 7pm-on-a-Saturday-evening view of the world. That includes everyone from the porn-merchants to the Klan fuckheads, the hackers and the dangerous intellectuals. You may not like some of them but this ISP doesn't like any of them
AOL/Time-Warner are of course perfectly entitled to regulate what is contained on their own servers but by dint of their very size and ubiquity they reduce the choice readily available both to their own users looking for anything outside aol.com/my.netscape.com and the first-timers who simply go for the biggest name.
Monopolies are not generally bad. Misuse of a monopoly position (a la MS) is. But when it comes to those who would provide millions with their only everyday access to the world outside their own town, one uniform point of view without competition can only be harmful. The day News International/Fox get onto the net proper is the day we kiss our freedom goodbye.
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
I know we all suffer from largecorporationophobia here, myself included, but I don't see how controlling even 20% of the web (astronomically large unreachable figure) gives you complete control over its content. People who don't want to read AOL's propaganda can very easily find sites not run by AOL.
Furthermore, though it's true that most of the web's users are more interested in DiCaprio than De Icaza (sorry if I don't know how to spell), people in general tend to have sympathy for underdogs. That's why Linux and Be get as much publicity as they do. That's why large companies will never be able to capture more than a certain critical mass of internet content.
There's no reason for a sig here.
Wake up! There *are* people living outside the States, believe it or not. This statement of 95% of all Web users... tsk tsk tsk.
Even within the States I'd doubt it, but if this is intented as a global statement, I'd say it's false. Period.
Most of the non-US citizens I know read most of their news (that's like, 75%) right from their local newspapers' pages (or broadcasting compaines' whatever). FEW read only AOL+Time-Warner-owned sites. One reason is that they're in a foreign language. Another is that the topics they publish really don't draw their attention.
Roblimo, you're not the only one found guilty of being far too USA-centered. Most of them never learn. Be better.
Think about this...Microsoft is simply a monopoly upon the computer industry. Yes, they crush small companies with evil glee, and would steal ideas from Billy Gates's own grandma, but this AOL/Warner thing is much deeper. Time Warner controls a huge chunk of the entertainment industry. Chances are that that movie you saw, CD you bought, or TV show you laughed at last night are all affiliated with Time Warner in some way. And entertainment is an easy way to manipulate people into buying things, liking certain things, people or companies, and even living a certain way. People listen to music and watch movies and match that with their lifestyle, unconsciously most of the time. And now, thanks to this wonderful merger, AOL has their greasy 'You've Got Mail' tentacles subtly in our favorite shows, music, etc... They can decide what they want us to listen to and watch, and what we shouldn't.
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
Firstly, advances in technology are lowering barriers to entry across an increasing number of industries. The explosion of the independent film industry over the past few years is just one good example. I can think of many other examples of this phenomenon. Think of a few of the products that we would not have at all were it not for (relatively) cheap SGI worstations and stereolithography machines (rollerblades, &c).
Secondly, virtual companies that license brands, and outsource everything from design to fulfillment will soon be less risky to invest in, as well as more efficient and easier to manage than large, monolithic organisations. In the not too distant future, most companies will be service bureaus. Each will do one thing, and do it well. One of the last missing pieces is a set of clean, standardized interfaces that allow companies to couple and decouple more or less dynamically, treating one another like closely knit business units of the same firm. XML will soon fill this gap. Any firm that 'implements the interface' will satisfice for a given business need.
All of this contributes to the diminishing importance of economies of scale. It won't be long before a group of really smart grad students starts, say, a car company that that does to General Motors what Microsoft did to IBM. Executives at Time-Warner and the like realise this, which is why they're circling the wagons, merging with everyting in sight. I term this behaviour 'Panic Buying'. Like its frightful cousin, Panic Selling, it doesn't pencil out in the long run.
--
Socrates was asked where he was from. He replied not "Athens," but "The world."
is that you are arguing for the lowest common denominator. If that's the market that AOL, Microsoft, ABC, whatever want to go for, that's fine with me. However, these companies have to respect my right to go elsewhere if they don't meet my needs.
Here's where things get sticky though, what happens when these companies going after the LCM buy up everything. I no longer have any choice, I am stuck with whatever these conglomerants choose to give me, and I'm supposed to say "Thank you sir, may I have another!" Sorry, but I'm not going to play that game.
Also, it is with the utmost of arrogance that these big companies try to pigeon hole everyone into their little one-size-fits-all packages. AOL and Microsoft are big offenders here. Who died and made them the arbiters of what is supposed to be friendly and easier to use? I for one will vote that AOL is not friendly nor is it easy to use. In fact, AOL is just a big pain in the neck to use, and they have the absolute worst email client I have ever had the displeasure of having to use in a pinch. And I have similar complaints about MS software. Personally I think the "ease of use/simplicity argument" is pretty weak. It may be simple in some contexts, but certainly not in mine. I feel I have the right to access any available content by whatever means is most efficient for me in the situation I'm in. By forcing me into some canned interface that doesn't suit my needs makes me inefficient and costs me time and money.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
What I find sad about the entire discussion on the AOL/Time-Warner merger is that in the zeal of Slashdot regulars to dismember Microsoft, they have implicitly ignored what could the world's most frightening corporate entity EVER.
I mean look at AOL Time Warner's assets:
1. 23 million worldwide users of AOL and CompuServe--not a small group of users.
2. Time-Life Publishing, one of the world's most influential group of general-interest magazine publishers (Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and others).
3. Warner Brothers movie studio, a major player in movie production.
4. The WB Network, an increasingly powerful TV network with both prime time and children's programming.
5. Warner Music, one of the most influential musical labels in the world.
6. The CNN cable channels, with CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn and CNN/SI.
7. TBS Superstation, TNT and Turner Classic Movies cable channels.
8. HBO Networks, with its multichannel premium cable channel offerings plus TVKO pay-per-view programming.
9. Time-Warner Cable, the second largest cable operator outside of AT&T Cable Services (neé TCI Cable).
10. Roadrunner, a broadband Internet service provider using the Time-Warner Cable infrastructure.
11. DC Comics, a major and influential comics publisher.
12. Hanna-Barbera animation studio (and its massive animation film library).
13. The world's largest movie film library, no contest.
I'm sure there are other assets I haven't mentioned, but just these ten parts of AOL Time Warner have _enormous_ influence on what we read in magazines, what we see in the movie theater and on TV programming, what we hear in music and soon what we can read on the Internet. This is the type of media control that William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer could not imagine in their lifetimes and it makes the fictional Elliot Carver from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES seem not as far-fetched as some people think.
In short, it has the very prospect of stifling free expression itself. The very possibility that unless it is approved by AOL Time Warner or it won't be shown is no longer a fantasy.
AOL Time Warner, in short, will make the power of Microsoft over desktop operating systems seem like a minor incident in comparison.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I don't buy this for a second. How many sources of media and news did people then have compared to now? I would argue that they have _many_ more now. ,
Pretty hard to prove this one way or another. There were initially a lot of small, local town newspapers not controlled by Hearst. There were many more independent publishers of books at that time. Now a vast majority of stuff is published by subsidiary companies of Bertelsmann (now a subsidiary of AOL). I don't know if you appreciate the scale of it, but publishers like Random House are part of the Bertelsmann group.
Here's a question: Did TW ever try and influence how _you_ wrote your articles? Just because AOL owns CNN doesn't mean they can dictate what the reporters say and do, for the most part. I would argue that the integrity of Wolf Blitzer, Christian Amanpour, etc. will not be changed, and that if some corporation tried to control how they did their job they would scream bloody murder[...]If I don't like the way CNN is reporting, I'll change the channel. I guarantee you that CNN and NBC/CBS/ABC/etc. aren't all conspiring with AOL.
Most people are at least partially aware of the subtle pressure of not criticizing your boss, plus once you've talked yourself into working for some company you either reach a mental accomodation with that (read become compromised) or else you never saw anything wrong with them in the first place. And who wants to destroy the company that's providing their salary? It's a self regulating system. The other alternative is that you're very unhappy in your job and eventually leave it and do something else.
You seem to be arguing both that reporters are never inhibited about being critical about their own employers and that there are alternatives anyway.
The last point seems to ignore that there is at the least a gradual building of a behemoth that did not exist before. You are being carefree about the fact that this new diverse territory is being steadily coalesced into a single entity. I worry about this because I think it should be possible that the middle-of-the-road, straight-white, family-values, McDonald's-munchin', Disney-lovin' AOL users may occasionally once in a blue moon want to think about something outside the bounds of his/her usual life. I want there to be alternatives for that person to look at. But if the AOL search-engines and filters decide that /. is a site that caters to commie-linux-faggots and is blocked then they won't get to find it. They'll find the Reformed Baptist Ministry of Sacred Truth portal to WindowsChoices instead (5% of banner revenue contributed automatically to the Bush 2005 Campaign for A Better America).
I don't know how to take your guarantee. I don't believe that conspiracies are the only way of control being imposed. There can be tacit agreement between people with similar interests. They may bicker among each other fighting to be top of their own group. But ultimately they act in concert against those outside that group. Look at the example of Stephen Dunifer (sp?) with the micro-radio movement (Radio Free Berkeley) and the unified front presented against him by the commercial radio stations.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
The ability to distribute information through the population is critical to the maintainence and control of society, and allowing it to come into the hands of those whose stated purpose is making shareholders (i.e. not regular people, workers, the environment, etc) happy can only be dangerous.
Implicitly, if that one party gets control over things, the rest of us tend to get screwed over -- after all, they are looking after their interests, not yours and mine. Why would they bother to do anything that helps the other 90% of the American and 99% of the global population, unless maybe it happens to be as a side effect of an activity that is otherwise purely profitable to themselves.
The mass media are already too homogenous. It's bread & circuses all over again: we get fed a steady diet of nothing worth watching, and not enough people are complaining about it. And while, yes, the digital new media are somewhat immune to the influence of the old media, still the danger is present.
We really can't ignore this or allow it to go unchecked. Read up. Read Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent". Listen to Disposeable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's Drug of a Nation. Watch C-Span rather than Jerry Springer; Adbusters rather (or in additon to ;-) Slashdot; wave signs, write letters, make web pages, consider civil disobedience and acts of anarchy a la "Fight Club" -- but whatever you do, fight back and make a difference.
We need it, badly. We're on the wrong track these days...
I'd write more, and more cogently, but I'm too tired right now...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Every year this project lists "the news that didn't make the news" -- stuff Noam Chomsky would shake his head at and say, "See, I told you so."
The 1999 top-ten list (I think they do 50 overall, with a special section in the yearly book for "junk food/fluff news" that got overreported):
Multinational Corporations Profit from International Brutality
2 Pharmaceutical Companies Put Profits Before Need
3 Financially Bloated American Cancer Society Fails to Prevent Cancer
4 American Sweatshops Sew U.S. Military Uniforms
5 Turkey Destroys Kurdish Villages with U.S. Weapons
6 NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in the Balkans
7 U.S. Media Reduces Foreign Coverage
8 Planned Weapons in Space Violate International Treaty
9 Louisiana Promotes Toxic Racism
10 The U.S. and NATO Deliberately Started the War with Yugoslavia
I actually had dinner with the guy who's head of this, Peter Philips. He's angry in a constructive way, and reading Project Censored makes me feel like I should be, too.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
It isn't the size of a company that makes it good or bad. It's not even the amount of power it has. Whether a company is good or bad depends on what it DOES with that size and power. Microsoft shut out competition, snowed customers, and screwed governments. We have to wait and see what AOL/Time-Warner does before we can make a judegement, if any.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
You raise a good point - however, early in your article you state that AOL-Time Warner is unlikely to be interested in niche markets such as Slashdot, or blind-enabled web pages. It is the lack of availability in distinct informational markets that will keep niche players like Slashdot alive.
You go on to close with:
"And if that 5% is controlled by a single giant, mass-market media conglomerate ... the next generation of bright youngsters who have innovative Web site ideas will never get a chance to build a Slashdot-style following, no matter what operating system they use. "
This is antithetical to your earlier claim. If AOL-Time isn't interested in small markets, other players will be. Slashdot is a perfect example. Even my non-tech friends frequent off-beat websites that fill particular informational needs.
An oft quoted line in this forum is "Information seeks to be free". An appropriate corallary might be "Information seeks to be found."
Actually, more that a drowning out of the 'little voices', I'm frightened of the dribble that is fed into the minds of Joe Q. Public. We'll see the 'televisation' of the Web, with that 95% of accessed content being of similar quality to the nightly news or inane sitcoms.
(As an aside, I live in Atlanta, and our news mostly consists of half-baked, 20-second sound bites taken completely out of context... I've noticed that there is a marked decline in news quality in bigger cities. Am I alone in noticing this?)
Hey, it's just my USD$.02
jerdenn
For those of you wondering just who AOL is http://www.corp.aol.com/ has a lot of information, including: SEC filings.
company timeline.
These Finacial Discolsures are informative.
This little animated GIF is a good start on learning just how many pies they have their fingers in.
Who owns the most AOL?
___
The basic tenet of the hacker ethic is that information wants to be free. AOL-Timer Warner sounds like the Levittown of online services, designed for people too stupid to own a computer or too young to be allowed to surf the real web (like my kids are) or too afraid and insecure or just plain inexperienced to deal with the difficult mechanics of clicking a link or watching to see when IE or Netscape gives them the finger to indicate when they're over a link. There are always going to be more readers of AOL than Slashdot, just as there will always be more readers of USA Today than "Brill's Content" or "Scientific American" or even the Washington Post. If you were to find thinking people in America and ask them who they trust for depth and accuracy and insight, I bet USA Today would rank far down the list. Ditto with AOL. Slickly packaged mush will always appeal to the booboisie, because they often lack the intellectual teeth to tackle anything more. However, there will always be market for edgy, serious, and unconventional media ... for example, Web sites for people who don't need training wheels anymore.
Bullshit, the search engines 'bubble' certain sites up to the top, not because they really match what you want, but because some big company pays yahoo or excite or whathaveyou to make it happen. Most people don't look past the first few hits, if even the first page of hits. So a company can buy its way to the top, pushing other (most likely more relivent sites) down...which the average user won't even bother to see.
Actually, while this is true for services such as Yahoo, where it is a directory, more then a actual search engine, this is not entirely true for other engines.
Altavista, for example offers its 'real name' service, that if a user puts "Joe's Widgets" it will return the "Joe's Widgets Worldwide, Inc." homepage.
Ask Jeeves is a whore to corporate marketing, that much is true. We're definately at the mercy of the AJ staff as far as content that is given priority--but even then its just priority, and we're still given the rest of the search results.
As far as I know Google doesn't offer any such bubbling services, and for that reason among others (simple, straight-forward and accurate searching) is becoming extremely popular.
But what isn't commonly known is that the number one item that determines priority, or will put a search result to the top on a spidering engine is the number of links that outside sites have linking to it. So by defintion, the 'most popular' sites will come to the top--and this is usually what you want.
The interesting implication of this is the populus has a lot of control over this. On our personal homepages, posted personal bookmarks etc., we 'vote' for what pages will be listed at the top. So sites that have exceptional content, using the current search engine model will have priority over the best 'evil-empire' built site, unless the Evil Empire Inc., goes out and buys priority from all the search engines. And if this happens too much, search engines will loose a lot of credibility--take Altavista for example: how many of us still use it as our primary search engine? Google has filled the niche for people who like the power of Altavista's search engine, but don't like the bullshit Doubleclick ads all over the place, the RealNames, them trying to be a 'portal', etc (all stuff they started doing after they got sold off).
So I'd say that those are some pretty clear examples of how competition has flourished even in the midst of (albiet smaller) 'corporate entitites' trying to modify information access and priority.
-k
If there's one thing you can count on Slashdot to be, it's elitist. All of us like to think we're so much better than anyone else it makes me sick. Some sample /. reactions to articles:
article about GNOME/KDE: "If they can't figure out a command line every once in a while, why should they be using Linux? And do they really even need a computer?"
article about the US: "Well, screw the US anyway. They're stupid and backwards and Europe's so much better and thank God I don't live there any more. Too many idiots."
anything by Jon Katz: "SHUT UP! YOU SUCK! But you're right that geeks are fundamentally better than everyone else and are persecuted for it."
Add this to the fundamentally Libertarian / Objectivist / "if things were fair I'd be at the top of the heap because I'm better than most people" attitude and the rampant bragging about IQ's (you know who you are, all of you "my IQ is 160+" people) in any story that talks about intelligence, and you've got one hell of a scary picture.
If this is how the people who run the information technology that our society depends on feel, how humane can we count on them being? I, personally, wouldn't trust the Slashdot community further than I could throw it.
The 'net will never be totally consumed by corporate media.
Unless the corporate media buy all the major search engines on the 'net.
And even if they did, new ones would crop up.
You see, the vast majority of WWW users surf. They type phrases into search engines, and click on the results. As long as someone will be able to see slashdot.org, or my site, or some other independent site, we'll exist, and more people will publish independent sites.
Yes, the number of non-savvy folks out there who never even make it past the front page/portal/AOL experience will never see us, but that's okay.
If part of being independent IS being independent, we don't need EVERYONE, especially all the newbies, tuning in anyway.
Just my 2 cents.
I don't buy this for a second. How many sources of media and news did people then have compared to now? I would argue that they have _many_ more now.
Without a doubt many more publications under many new names are available to the consuming public today than previously. However, if one checks the corporate ownership of these various publications one notices a single fact about almost all: they are almost all owned by as few as nine media conglomerates, worldwide. From FAIR's webpage (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) here are several sources for this assertion:
- The Global Media Giants: The nine firms that dominate the world
- Corporate Ownership Matters: The Case of NBC"
- Media Monopoly: Long History, Short Memories -- ABC Was Born Out of Fear of Media Consolidation"
This is only a few links from The Corporate Ownership page, which was itself a link from the primary Media Woes page, containing links to discussions on the limited range of acceptable debate (something Noam Chompsky wrote a whole book about, see: Manufacturing Consent), significant advertiser and corporate ownership influence, manipulation of debate by pressure groups, and PR as news (how simple corporate press releases get prime news coverage without even basic fact checking).The news media is an absolute mess... and frankly if it were not for the net I think we should expect even greater limitations in the range of acceptable debate and discourse throughout society. The net threatens the media conglomerates because it allows individuals to shift the debate not only away from what's acceptable to the power elite, but even worse: away from advertising influence, which is the whole point behind a unified corporate media -- shove those ads down our throats and get us to buy crap we wouldn't otherwise even consider. For this reason it's reasonable to fear a Time Warner/AOL merger simply because it represents not just more media power consolidating into fewer conglomerate corporations, but because it represents the largest ISP merging with one of the largest Media Conglomerates. If they succeed in controlling the individual expression of users and content distributors while monopolizing Internet access they will succeed in stripping the Internet of it's primary benefit to society at large.
I note that without organizations like FAIR, and a free press unhindered by corporate pressure, advertising pressure, and government pressure no one would know about stories like this: Government Psychological Warfare operatives work as interns at CNN News, and thus no one would have forced CNN to explain themselves with this statement. That's right, our government had five PSYOPS personel working directly in CNN's Newsroom and NOT A SINGLE PRIMARY NEWS OUTLET HAS EVER PUBLISHED THIS STORY!
Pretty scary, huh?
There are currently two trends with respect to media companies, consolidation and fragmentation.
AOL-TW is just one of a number of mergers. Yet at the same time we see the barriers to entery droping. /. was started and run by a couple of guys in college. Digital video is lowering the cost of moving making (think Blair Witch). Internet radio has lower start up and running costs than traditional radio, and no frequency constraints. MP3s and such allow musicians to cut out the RIAA middle men.
Speaking of the RIAA, as /. readers are well aware, they and the MPAA are fighting very hard to maintain the status quo.
This combination of fragmentation and consoidation can be seen in a number of areas. Newspaper reading continues to decline while web surfing is increasing. Network TV viewing is down, cable viewing is up. Yet TV networks are seen as valuable properties. And newspaper companies are investing in other newspapers, while providing free web access. A curious allocation of resources.
It will be interesting to see how these two trends play out. I'm routing for fragmentation and choice.
That said the problems of consolidation are real. Here in the US (and I suspect in most democracies) public opinion does matter. And the fact that AOL-TW controls and/or can influence where people get their info frightens me.
In addition to the problems associated with the large media conglomerates controling the access to and the content of information I see two other problems.
The first has to do with self censorship by reporters and journalists. While big the big names will be able to resist pressure to toe the company line, it could be a different story for the unknowns with no reputation to protect them. Consider a reporter just out of journalism school, with a family to support, a mortage to pay off, student loans, etc. Writing or even pursuing a story unflattering to the corporate parent could be seen as career suicide. So they don't, rationalizing that their new baby is more important then a story. Soon these stories never even reach concious awareness.
No one told this reporter not to persue these stories. But perceived self interest leads to self censorship.
The second problem has to do with perceived conflicts of interest. If Time has a story about AOL, would you believe it? (How about if Microsft commissions a poll about Windows?) If it is flattering then the fix is in. If it is unflattering it's just Time trying to show its independence. Either way the motives are suspect.
Finally these mega mergers lead to a very bland media landscape, since as noted by Roblimo they are going after mass markets. Has anyone noticed how similar the news shows on the networks are. Not just the nightly news but the news magazines and the morning shows as well. How many mob shows are on tap now that The Sopranos is a hit? How many Mars movies are out or in production? And where are all the fresh new musical acts? As an information and entertainment consumer I am very much pro choice.
I've rambled on long enough, and I'll leave it to someone else to explore the problems of a fragmented media landscape.
Steve M
>In his day, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was considered by many to be more powerful than the U.S. President, and he didn't have a fraction of the information control Time-Warner has now...
I don't buy this for a second. How many sources of media and news did people then have compared to now? I would argue that they have _many_ more now.
>My personal fear of giant corporate voices controlling the Internet as a news medium is based not only on their potential political influence, but also on their ability to stifle innovation online. Do you think Rob Malda and Jeff Bates would ever have been allowed to do their schtick on AOL or through Time-Warner?
No, but who says they have to? Just because AOL/TW has huge market share doesn't mean that small, independent, special-interest sites can't become successful. In fact, one could argue that AOL is contributing to their success by getting millions of users onto the net who would never have been there before.
>The section of Time-Warner's online empire for which I used to write was Netly News...
Here's a question: Did TW ever try and influence how _you_ wrote your articles? Just because AOL owns CNN doesn't mean they can dictate what the reporters say and do, for the most part. I would argue that the integrity of Wolf Blitzer, Christian Amanpour, etc. will not be changed, and that if some corporation tried to control how they did their job they would scream bloody murder. (Of course, there are exceptions; reporters can be pressured into which stories to write, news can be edited to give it a slant, etc. etc. One example I can think of is the whole 60 Minutes/Tobacco story recently made famous in The Insider. But note that what happened: The producer stood up for what was ethically [in his profession] right to do, and CBS had some serious egg on their faces, and they suffered for it.)
This article strikes me as sort of Jon Katz-ish, the world is coming to an end, oh-my Big-Brother article. I don't buy any of it. If I don't like the way CNN is reporting, I'll change the channel. I guarantee you that CNN and NBC/CBS/ABC/etc. aren't all conspiring with AOL.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
You would almost think it is impossible for anyone to control all the quality content on the web. After all... when a million monkeys at a million keyboards can make a million websites (http://www.geocities.com), why would people need to stick to the big sites?
Oh... Quality content. That means stuff that people want to read, right?
------
Following line: Good example of Fair Use.
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Have you ever noticed that people are always warning about the *prospect* of a monopoly, rather than the reality?
There *are* real monopolies. Electric companies, local telcos, cable companies. And they're all granted their monoplies by virtue of legislative action. And these monoploies, which were established under the pretext of maintaining market order, are the most durable of all.
Thanks for your concern, but no thanks for your help. We the market can cut these folks down to size without your help.
I live in an area where Time Warner is our current monopoly for Cable access ... In 2 months they have announced that they will have Cable Modem access available in our area... I asked a representitive of the company about this and how it could be used on other platforms .... they replied to me "You will be able to have cable access on many platforms, Linux, Windows, even OS/2, you will not be required to use AOL's interface either" this is good news In my opinion, I beleive it is a step in the right direction for Time Warner/AOL whereas AOL can offer Cable Access through Time Warner for those that are not as 'enlightened' as we are, and Time Warner can offer Cable access directly without having to run it through AOL's interface, or even having to come from an AOL address.
DaiTengu
--------
Damage Inc. BBS