Slashdot Mirror
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."
While most people might spend most of their time on commercial sites, that doesn't mean everyone does. It also doen't mean that they are forced to. If a user feels like spending his time on commercial sites, it isn't my problem.
The whole point of the internet (ok theres not really one point to the internet) is to ALLOW everyone to be able to have their own sites or visit the sites they want. This doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to go to the "underground" sites. If someone wants to go to a sanitized news source, that does not hurt me in any way. I've never understood the problem with letting people use the internet how they want. There will always be an "underground" on the net for people who want to go there.
The net has always had an access cost -- you had to have a machine, you had to have a connection. In the "ideal" net of late 80's and early 90's, it wasn't necessarily more democratic. Only people with computers and net connections had access.
With commercialization came lower costs and greater access. So while the proportion of content has become less democratic, the number of people who have been given the opportunity to access it has become more.
No, it's not the wacky little connection of home grown websites that it used to be, but it's not necessarily a bad thing that more people have been given access either.
4 corporations account for 50.4% of web traffic.. sounds like 50.4% of web users 'vote' for those sites with their usage. That doesnt mean those are the best websites, or the most worthy of their attention, just that most people use them. I guess that has some vague notion of democracy.
however-
democracy != freedom
As long as we're free to go to whatever websites we want to, and free to communicate with whoever we want to, the web will be free. It doesnt matter if one website gets 99.9% of all web traffic (democracy in action there) as long as the other 0.1% can look at something else.
Democracy is about majority rule. Freedom is about no one, not even a majority, having the right to tell one what to do.
So, sometimes freedom and democracy overlap, and sometimes they collide.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Ok, let me get this straight; the internet is democratic mass communication only if everybody picks the "right" web sites?
There's no chance at all that the reason 50% of people's time is spent on web sites belonging to four companies is because those four companies are providing a service that Americans feel is worth spending 50% of their time reading?
Freedom of choice means freedom to make bad choices, and freedom of the press includes freedom to print crap.
So what? The volme of commercial traffic probably funds most of the development of road infrastructure (including gas stations, insurance companies, snow removal, etc., etc....).
As long as that "commercial" traffic doesn't prevent me from making use of the roads for whatever purpose I see fit (like going for a drive on the country, or going out for a spin on my bicycle), then I can't see how that hurts me.
(True, the Internet isn't what it used to be, but I don't see that the original ideals of free, global communication have gone away... if you take the time to look for them. The "unwashed masses" may still be duped by the forces of commercialism, but that will always be true. The Internet isn't going to "Save the World" any more than any other technology is.)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
What on earth does AOL/Time Warner do that's 32% of the Internet? I visit CNN occasionally, but as far as I know that's about it for me and AOL/TW.
I suppose AOL users spend quite a bit of time at AOL/TW sites, and since they represent such a large percentage of Internet users, that skews the figures. But that's hardly fair to the rest of the net, since AOL itself is dedicated to giving people an experience that sticks with their services.
If you consider the argument that AOL users are AOL users first and Internet users second, the picture starts looking a lot less bleak, with Microsoft at 7.5% and Yahoo at 7.2%. The fourth company must have such pathetic market share they don't even tell us who it is! But we can tell - the total is 50.4%, so subtracting out AOL, MS and Yahoo we get a titanic 3.4% for number four, whoever it is.
This hardly strikes me as a good case for massive concentration, and certainly it doesn't show how Slashdotters use the net. It is true that I explore new sites just for the fun of it a great deal less than I did before, and I concentrate on specific sites I already know. But every query I type into a search engine exposes me to new places, and Slashdot does the same, and some of those will wind up in my mental list of cool sites to visit.
So the situation is not so bleak. The fellow who wrote this, however well-intentioned, has blinders on. He starts with the idea that anything controlled by private business is bad, and inevitably comes up with the same conclusions writers on the left always do.
He forgets about millions of personal home pages, including my own, whose owners develop an expertise on various issues they are happy to share. He forgets about community sites such as Slashdot, where people speak freely about what matters to them, and help evolve an uncontrolled consensus. The soul of the net is still alive and well.
Any mass medium develops a large variety of users. Some of those users are passive, others are active, as many of us are here. In the end, though, that's a choice made by each of us individually. And the mindless drones are drawn to heavily advertised sites, but that surely doesn't mean the sky is falling; if they weren't here, they'd probably be watching TV, which makes viewing any web site look like an intellectual exercise.
D
So all those pr0n sites are really just 4 companies? Weird.
Wait a minute -- on the one hand, the net is horrible because people can distribute copyrighted material, and on the other hand the net is horrible because big corporations control everything?
I think the 50% stat is a little misleading. People spend a lot of time using free web applicaitons that sites like MSN and Yahoo give them. But should a person's time on Hotmail really be counted as the same sort of thing as a person's time reading the NY Times? If AOL forces its users to hit their page first, how does that compare to a site like this one (/.), where people choose to view it?
The Drudge Report is a good example of what the net can do. It's one guy with a massive audience. Andrew Sullivan's site is another example of a single guy with a big audience. I think sites like Indy Media have big audiences as well. Even if they don't, when compared to Time/Warner/AOL, it's an enormously powerful tool for getting the word out.
I think there's a parallel here to Linux vs. MS. People started businesses, everyone started talking about "world domination" and all of a sudden Linux is failing if it can't compete on MS's home court, the corporate world. But that's not the way Linux started -- it was a great way to learn, it was something that allowed everyone to participate. It's still great for that stuff, and it always will be.
Debian can't be killed, it will probably go on for decades. Seriously -- what possible scenario could you think of that would cause it stop existing? Why isn't that the relevant fact, instead of the VA Linux stock price?
Alternative media don't have to compete with commercial media to succeed. They just have to survive and provide high quality information. The net makes that possible, and it's going to continue to make that possible. And the net's going to make sure that almost every family in America, and in most of the industrialized world, is going to have access to that information.
Sure, most people aren't going to bother with it. But what did anyone expect? That the net would change human nature? Most people don't care. But a lot of people are going to take the trouble. They already do. And those people can make a difference.
Am I correct in understanding that among that 50.4% are sites like Yahoo's Geocities and AOL personal pages? Which is to say, the sites are hosted by Yahoo and AOL, but the actual content is put there by individuals.
If that's so, then I'm not overly concerned at the moment. It's like saying that there's no free press because 90% of the paper in the US is manufactured by three corporations.
Okay, it's not exactly the same, because paper companies don't require you to agree not to print porn on their paper and they don't sell ads on letters to your grandma. But I think there's a wide difference between 50.4% of the sites being hosted by a few corporations, and 50.4% of the content being generated by those corporations.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
The reason big companies can have so much web traffic is pretty obvious: they have the money to pay for the bandwidth.
It's easy enough to put up a web site off your DSL link or what have you, but once you get some serious traffic, such as the well-known slashdot effect, boom no one can get to your site any more. This is why no private individual that's not independently wealthy could ever try to compete toe-to-toe with cnn.com, say.
But that's not necessary. Very few people, with the exception of Matt Drudge of the self-named Drudge Report, want to compete with CNN. And it's much easier to compete on the web than it is in TV markets-- anyone can put up a web site overnight, but good luck starting a cable channel and getting cable TV carriers to carry it. The independent web is alive and well, and any talk of the death of it is greatly exaggerated.
The only thing that could possibly kill the web is control of the browser, which would be Microsoft. And you know that AOL-Time-Warner will fight them tooth and nail on that. Now if those two ever merge, then we should all be Very Very Afraid.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
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.
See this? It's the smallest violin in the world, playing for the loss of the once ubiquitous "Hamster Dance" faction of the Internet.
The one real draw of the internet, the low cost of entry, still is true. You are still free to go and make your own sites, just go ahead and do it. Just don't blame people for not visiting it if it isn't interesting...
(On a slightly different note, did anyone notice that the "top 4" companies were all portals? Maybe people's web browsers have set those sites as thier home page, and they get a "free" hit every time the browser loads up.)
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The adverts do bother me. It's up to us to make sites that suck less, and put those stupid bloated carcase sites like doubleclick out of business. If 50% of web traffic is going to those stupid sites, 49.9% of web traffic must be adverts.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
One is noting but a bunch of corporate whores, selling themselves out for just a little bit more power over its consumers, trying to claim status as a cultural icon and a driving force in Western societies and economies, while the other is operated by Microsoft.
We act like what is happening now is the final word for the Net. It's not even close -- someone just invented the horseless carriage, and we're really concerned because a couple of big companies have started making them.
Yes, those companies could be Ford and GM, but they also could be nobodies. We have only just begun; the technology is very young and very immature, and so are just about all the internet's users.
Don't worry yet. Worry in about 25 years.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
IMHO, based on my observations of the "average" internet user (ie, my in-laws), here are the "forces" that result in that traffic statistic:
* Many think AOL == WWW == Internet, so they only are aware of 1% of what's available. Someone will come up to me and ask "where's store X or how do I spell Y or how do I find out more about Z" and in 30 sec. I find it for them (mapquest.com, m-w.com, google.com). You then hear "wow, how did you do that dude?" If AOL doesn't lead them by the nose or if they don't hear about the site on TV, they will not find it. For example, my in-laws ALWAYS go to yahoo.com to find things (heard it from someone on TV), which may not be the best way to find something (it's one tool of many). Most people just don't know any better.
* Most people I know want to be passively entertained (except for AIM). It NEVER dawns on them that THEY can set up a web page! A lot of people I know have digital cameras, but they always send me one or two pictures by email. They can set up a web page and put ALL their pictures for ALL to see at once (http://balder.prohosting.com/~jkb0859/vacation.ht ml). My kid's teacher is blown away when I take pictures of the school's artwork and whip out a web page on it and kid's relatives from Australia see them.
* As everyone knows, it's not exactly easy to find things on the WWW, even with the search engines available. You need a different skill set (mind set) to "dig" for the information, as opposed to having it shoved in front of your face or having a comprehensive index. For most people I know, that means they just don't do it. My in-laws or wife would rather just ask me to find it than do it themselves.
Because of the lack of education (let's face it, not everyone wants to just sit there and explore or dig for things by themselves) and lack of easy to use tools, it's no wonder that most are going to a few sites. The fact that these sites are run by corporations is probably due to exposure by TV (news) or other popular media
Okay, so let me get this straight...
So these people are making a claim about the amount of time people spend on websites. I'm still hunting for the reference, but the question I ask myself is, how did they collect this data? I can think of at least three different ways.
I would doubt method three was used, as it would probably be a violation of rights, and I doubt most ISP's would give out that info without a court order. So that leaves us with at least two other possibilities, either direct observation or requesting logs from websites.
As I'm sure most will agree, neither of these methods is going to give you good data. In the first case, I guarantee people are not going to surf the same way being observed as they will unobserved. Who volunteers for this kind of survey and looks at pr0nography, stileproject and other disgusting sites, looks at pr0nography, illegaly downloads music and movies, looks at pr0nography, grabs spl0its for some kiddie h4x0ring, and looks at pr0nography while being observed? If they were actually observed in a lab, I would almost guess the researchers might have warned against illegal activity while surfing. If the subjects were interviewed, do you honestly think they would say this is how they spent their time surfing. If you were to ask Joe Sixpack on the street what websites he looked at, he will probably only remember the names of most of the major sites (because they are so visible), and wouldn't have the guts to name his favorite pr0n site.
The second method has its share of flaws too. The researchers are going to, of course, request the logs for all of the major (ie visibile) sites. But how can you get logs from the multitute of little known sites out there? You will never get them all; the best you can do is estimate, at which point you are making up your own data.
If someone can get find the reference for this "study" and post a link here, I would appreciate it. I think Jupiter Media Metrix web site is mediametrix.com but I can't get in with my non-Javascript enabled browser. :P
This sig is false.