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The Commercialization Of the Internet
YorickFinn writes "Common Dreams recently posted an article by Norman Solomon on "Denial and the Ravaging of Cyberspace." In short, Solomon argues that the commonly held view of the net as the last bastion of truly democratic mass communication is, in fact, a myth. For instance, he points out that "Websites operated by just four corporations account for 50.4 percent of the time that U.S. users of the Web are now spending online...." Ultimately, Solomon claims that the net may become more like "interactive digital TV," with the decline in the use of browsers and the increasing prominence of technology such as MTV.(The "M" is for Microsoft, formerly WebTV.) All told, his forecast is somewhat bleak, but not entirely unfounded. Worth the read."
Don't you want a fast pipe to the internet? Well sign up here. OK, now that we have you, we've noticed that while a vast majority of you are happily hitting our cache of MSN, AOL, etc. there are some of you RUNNING SERVERS, using bandwidth, connecting to IRC, etc. Please stop that; we'll artificially limit your upstream speed to discourage that non-consumer activity. Oh, and we've decided to get rid of the Usenet newgroups that take up too much bandwidth, since the vast majority don't use them anyway. Oh, and your emails are getting lost but you should only be using @Home email for 'recreational purposes'.
And "go back to dialup" is NOT the answer.
We must be vigilant that the regular actions of the vast majority don't become the de facto standard and remove the abilities and freedoms we've come to know as the internet.
m00.
I compare the Internet to a Lord of the Flies situation. Let them be animals and they will be animals. If Americans weren't so blindly protective of "Free Speech", we could regulate it like other information mediums and return to an Internet with CONTENT!
I disagree. Were the US to repeal it's first amendment rights, and regulate speech, who would get the shit end of the stick? The answer is the same people who get the shaft by Congress now. The American people. Corporations make a nice "campaign contribution" and buy whatever laws they want (DMCA, UCITA, etc...) -- whereas the average citizen doesn't have that kind of influence. Who is the Congressman going to side with? The side giving him the cookie, of course. THe only "cookie" his constituents can give him individually is their one vote - which in the grand scheme of things is pretty worthless, seeing as the media conveniently splits things into a 2 party system (forcing 3rd parties out of the picture) and promiting two people who probably aren't really the best ones for the job - but of course, noone knows that because those are the only two choices presented to them before they get to the voting booth. Once there, the see a long list of names -- most of which they've never heard about before (thanks media!) so of *course* they're not going to vote for them.
If Free Speech is regulated, it's not the corporations that will be silenced, and their content removed -- it's the independant sites who will be squelched - because they don't give nice cookies like the X10 people do.
Right on. Every election there are only two presidential candidates, and that hasn't made anyone claim that America isn't a democracy.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
There will always be an "underground" on the net for people who want to go there.
I agree totally. While I may occasionally swing by Yahoo to get movie times or AOL/CNN to get world news, the vast majority of my time on the web is spent on 'private' sites. Sure, some of those sites may be hosted on AOL or Geocities, but they are administered by individuals rather than companies.
The vast majority of my packets don't come through HTTP at all, but from Usenet. I suspect that something like this is true for most 'advanced' users. They'll have a P2P client or some other form of unattended 'leech' going, especially now that cable and dsl connections are becoming ubiquitos... for those who haven't been bent over by their cable and DSL companies.
My 'Internet Time' goes roughly like this:
8:00 AM. Read news, see if world is still spinning.
8:02 - 8:30 Read comics like Sinfest, Exploitation Now, and Sluggy Freelance.
8:31 - 5:00 Work, taking frequent breaks to read fanfiction, download MP3's off Usenet, see if Anime News Network has published any thing that will change my world. Take 3-4 breaks a day to see if there's an interesting discussion here. I may check by CNet or ZDNet once a day to see if there's any interesting tech news. This doesn't happen every day.
5:30 - 11:30 Watch Anime Fansubs I've downloaded the night before off Usenet. Maybe game a little. Dinner. Family time. Go to the gym, etc. Almost 0 web browsing.
11:30 - Download headers for anime fansub newsgroups. Pick the episodes I want, start them downloading. These can be anywhere from 50 MB to 3 GB in size. While I sleep, my PC will leech for me.
95 percent of the content I get off the internetis generated by individuals rather than companies.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I knew when I stated that Americans are blindly protective of Free Speech that I would be met with controversy (I was even outright called a moron by one of the replies). I am a Canadian, and in Canada, information mediums are (rather heavily) regulated.
In Canada, if I wanted to advertise a tiny camera that fits anywhere, so to imply I can use it for voyerism, on any medium, it would not be allowed. The CRTC monitors all forms of advertisement for taste and offensiveness. At times this can be invasive, but for the most part, it protects children and keeps broadcasting tasteful.
This is the regulation I am talking about. Does it violate Free Speech, perhaps (Free Speech is a very loose term). Am I a civil libertarian? No. Freedom comes with responsibilities, and if these mediums are not regulated, they are invaded by people purpotrating and penetrating it with tasteless junk. Ever browsed Slashdot at -1, I think this proves it.
The fear of corporate involvement is true now, but if you voted a president who can count to ten next time, maybe he'd have some political will.
Certainly there were many ideas during the formation of the U.S. government.
What happens if you have 13 colonies and they each have their own political views and agendas?
Supposing each one has its own candidate - popular democracy suggests that the candidate with the most votes prevails. When a vote is split between more than two entities, there is a greater possibility that the majority submits to the minority. Even though one entity received the most votes, chances are the number of votes in that category still represents a substantial minority of the whole.
Hence the electoral college. The intent is to force the issues to the center, appealing to the largest number of people possible. When you only have two choices, there is no chance that a minority will get in power. The Constitution guarantees this "republican" form of government. Thus, it is not a true democracy.
Now, the original poster had pointed out that public perception of the issues is tainted by corporate agendas. This could be a reason why the smaller parties have not replaced the dominant Republicans and Democrats.
For example, I am personally incensed at the terrible DMCA legislation. The DMCA is an issue to me because of my background. The general public couldn't care less, so it isn't important to them if their candidate supports it or opposes it. Why doesn't the public care?
Well, I can go berating the system because I am enlightened about certain issues that the public is blind to, or I can realize that I represent a minority and that my government isn't optimized to satisfy my ideals.
The solution to good legislation isn't only to inform your elected officials, but to also inform your neighbors and friends. Their voices count more than yours alone.