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The Bandwidth Dilemma: Coders vs. E-CEOs
EMlNEM sent an interesting talking piece that's currently running on Cryptome. It's a look at some of Leadbeater's work and what the "new Internet" is and what it is supposed to be. Katz did a take on this recently called The Myth Of the Tech Slump, which IMHO, was much better.
If the author of this article, referencing Leadbeater, is correct in his interpretation... I'm glad the geeks won!
I so do not want to live in a world as described by Leadbeater... The net is perfectly fine the way it is, and in a very bottoms up, needs driven way, is evolving, albeitly in a non-hurried and eventful way, into whatever it is best suited and best needed for.
We *already* have television and radio networks for the dissemination of media and 'content'. The net itself is a self publishing, self pruning system where people can spout, and fade away to noise if no one wants to listen. I like it that way.
If I knew what I was working on, e-speak, would make the world *more* like Leadbeater's vision, I would quit.
It also sounds like Leadbeater is trying to 'rewrite' history to reflect his biases. I hope he fails!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
First off, there is one major misunderstanding at play here that I need to correct. Saying that the "dot-coms failed" is blatantly incorrect. The internet is the first truely new frontier we've had in a long time and I think a lot of people don't know their history about frontiers, development, and speculative investment. The first problem this caused was a huge speculative bubble when everyone and their mother was under the mistaken impression that the internet was pure gold on a platter for anyone willing to take advantage of it. The second problem this caused is (when the speculative bubble burst, as they always do) the prolification of all the naysayers who don't think the internet is worth a damn anymore. The truth of the matter is in between these extremes. Yes the internet is a great thing, for education, entertainment, and commerce. However, it doesn't mean that it's like a huge free pile of gold, it will take just as much hard work and determination to make money (or do anything of serious importance) on the internet as it takes to do make money or do anything of importance outside of the internet. And yes, there will be lots of failed businesses. This is to be expected. Look into the history of the railroad. In the early days it was frought with incompatible standards, rampant speculation, inflated stock prices, stock price collapses, investment scams, and failed businesses. And yet it was still an amazing achievement and an amazing opportunity for investment and it radically changed the world.
If you look at most of the failed internet dot-com startups you will see that they all follow a similar pattern. A possible "good idea" gets a large amount (millions) of venture capital. The company rapidly expands its workforce to be a "real company" with offices, servers, employees, etc. The company positively hemorrhages money, including money spent on commercials (*cough*superbowl 2000*cough*) to increase publicity and hopefully to rapidly (perhaps that should be explosively rapidly) expand their customer base. Lacking a business plan, existing customers, income, a long term strategy, or even a good operations plan (in combination with the fact that their attempt at publicity doesn't result in hordes of new customers) the company runs out of venture capital rapidly (gee I wonder where the money went) and they are forced to shut down in less than a year.
As any crack addicted disease addled senile monkey could tell you, that is not a good way to run a business. And there's no reason to believe (and in fact now we have ample reason to disbelieve) that there is something special about the internet that allows people to have a poorly managed company yet still make gobs of money. If you're going to make money on the internet (or anywhere) you need to 1) have a sound business plan, 2) expect (and plan for) reality not meeting with your expectations 3) keep costs low for as long as you can 4) build an existing customer base 5) build your service or production base (i.e. know wtf you are doing and continue to improve how you do it) 6) get a solid revenue stream 7) wait until you get firmly on your feet before reaching for the next level 8) make a plan for growth 9) plan for the worst 10) don't expect for (or plan for) that huge growth to come right away, it could, but it's more likely it will come later and when you least expect it, plan to keep up your "growing strategy" for a while, I would suggest something around 2 years being a good time frame. All of that is sound business advice. I don't know how people could think that a poorly thought out idea combined with pouring millions of dollars down a rat hole and then expecting that your business will grow at a mind boggling rate and expect to make all your startup capital back in 6 months or even a year is beyond me. And, apropos to the subject at hand, absurdly bad business strategy is not the fault of all us technogeeks.
Internet business is not dead, it is alive and thriving, and now it's all the better that the flock has been clensed of the weak and diseased.
There is a simple reason why geeks, and yes, even normal people, hate GIFS. The blinking ones are annyoing as hell! They get tacky very fast, as proven by this page of abominations. Simple is elegant is better. This doesn't only apply to geeks my friend. This is pure common sense.
Ok, let's examine that statement. Amazon, a corporation which "dominates the internet" is run by one of the biggest self-admitted geeks of them all: Jeff Bezos. If you look more closely, I believe you'll find that the corporations dominating the internet are running it through the geeks, not leaving them in the dust. Most conventional corporations wouldn't have a clue how to run an e-commerce program, a large scale network, or other highly technical fields. Those require the "geeks" you complain are left out of the big picture.
Let's face it: what could we, the geeks, provide that would be of interest to the common man. Geeks (in a general stereotypical statement) enjoy technical matters, so-called "dry academia" as you stated. That's why we're here reading slashdot, buying o'reilly books, and doing other such geek-ish things. The common man (in another stereotypical statement) does not enjoy the same things we do. They actually want to recieve news from corporations like CNN, be able to order merchandise online, and interact with corporations, not technical academia. Geeks could not provide a "common man's internet" even if we tried.
So, in summation, your comment has a few valid points, but seems to be missing the fact that geeks never really had a chance to dominate the whizz bang internet of the common man in the first place. That's why sites here like
Either that was an elegant troll, or you are wrong...
47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)
According to Leadbeater the "first Internet" failed because the technologists and geeks,
.... yeah yeah yeah.
He was telling me that I should "load up" on this stock and
that I would be rich.
... ;^)
Failed? It was awesome!
I was just talking to a guy on the train about this last week. I was reminiscing about the high-signal-to-noise days of the early days of Usenet over the Arpanet (late 1980's). He was yacking on about some new startup making pay-as-you-go chips that was gonna be the next e-boom,
I was telling this guy that I thought e-commerce was a big capitalist gang-bang, and that it (and advertising) has ruined then internet. And reminded him that the Internet was originally a SOCIALIST program, meaning, government "controlled", funded with tax dollars... and it worked real well!
I couldn't belive that I was saying this, as I'm a Green/Libertarian, and the term "socialism" is anathema to the Libs, (as well as the Dems and the Repubs).
But think about it: Certain things SHOULD be funded by a socialist model. The roads, for example. In a "free market" system, you'd have 2 toll roads going between the same 2 points, with the toll takes competing/colluding for your money. Look at the Cali energy crisis: public utilities should be severely regulated!
Look at the capitalist/commercial media in America. It sucks. It does not inform, it does not provide a balanced view of things, the corporations control the elections... the capitalist media does nothing well, but produce/distribute SPAM.
The socialst media in Canada and England produce some wonderful art (Imagine Monty Python or The Young Ones being produced in America?). The only thing like it in America is Public Access TV, or community radio (like what Pacifica is/was/tries to be) which has a socialist funding model with a decentralized authority (just like DNS).
I say its time for a return to the Socialst (economic) internet model, with the goals of decentralization and free speech, get the profit-seekers off the 'net, and immediately delcare the Deja archive a national treasure, with the goal of an UNCENSORED archive being restored/preserved for the good of mankind.
Call me a dreamer
So it didn't fail because people who rushed into being a dot.com with a plan no more complicated than "We want to make money online and fast, we don't care how". I failed because of all the geeks and nerds and their technology? Wow.
Frankly, the idea that the Internet "failed" because pets.com didn't crush your local pet store is kind of silly. As a geek, the Internet is still chugging along nice for me. And even for my non-geek friends, the continued growth in websites for research papers and entertainment, communication through instant messengers and email, and online gaming galore, means that the Internet hasn't failed for them either.
Maybe it's just my lack of business experience, but this author sounds like someone who's upset that eCommerce wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and now wants to create the "next big thing".