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The Commercialization Of the Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-happens-at-the-end-of-the-money dept.

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."

4 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. What does democracy have to do with it? by Johnny5000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  2. Just 4 companies? by vovin · · Score: 5, Funny

    So all those pr0n sites are really just 4 companies? Weird.

  3. Misleading stats by astrashe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. MTV vs. MTV by Guppy06 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.