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Web No Longer Eclectic?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the marching-in-lockstep dept.

khog writes: "The Sunday New York Times had a front-page article entitled, "Exploration of World Wide Web Tilts From Eclectic to Mundane." The article says that "[t]he Web was supposed to subvert corporate domination of culture by giving a global soapbox -- or printing press, or television station -- to anyone with a computer and a modem" and takes off from there. Was the Web ever "supposed to be" anything, much less a subversion of "corporate domination of culture?" Isn't the reduction of idle surfing and the increase of a "more direct, predetermined approach to the Web" just a "reflection" of an educated user base that knows what it wants?"

4 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... by nougatmachine · · Score: 4, Informative

    Geez, someone needs to tell these guys about blogs. A few quick trips to Memepool and BoingBoing should be enough to convince anyone that the web is still a pretty eclectic and loony place to be.

  2. Here's a quote I've been saving by unitron · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In an article about Gator.com from a couple of weeks ago, Gator's Scott Eagle said "The promise of the Internet was always one-to-one marketing...", but I'll bet he doesn't have a notorized piece of paper anywhere that starts out "I hereby promise..." and winds up saying "...signed, The Internet", and neither does anybody else.

    People keep saying "The Internet is supposed to be..." and then they fill in the blank with whatever they think most benefits them, and then whine when it turns out to be nothing more or less than a de-centralized network of networks instead of whatever miracle machine to which they personally feel somehow divinely entitled.

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  3. they've got it all wrong by The+Mayor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Internet promised to be the next generation platform for pornography and piracy. I can remember back in the mid-80s being able to download porn images (er...I mean a good friend told me they remember...). The Internet certainly has delivered on these promises.

    I'd love to see a breakdown of total Internet bandwidth allocated to porn and piracy. I'd bet it consumes >90% of the total bandwidth used. Movies, music, and babes...now, if only they could figure out a way to download alcohol and drugs.

    --
    --Be human.
  4. Intelligent People by nerdin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been working with it since early nineties, and my older son began to read on screen before than on paper.
    He's now 13. A quote from him, six months ago:

    "Internet is no longer carried out by intelligent people. Now it looks too much like TV".

    'nuff said.