Slashdot Mirror
The End of Cyber BS
Despite the staggering amount of hype everyone has had to endure (and some of us have contributed to), Weinberger's premise is that the Web hasn't been hyped enough. The Web, he claims, is not only altering social institutions like business and government, but transforming fundamental concepts of our culture: space, time, reality itself.
This is the sort of stuff that gets publishers, media people and academics breathing heavily, even though reality suggests that a) it simply isn't so, and b) such declarations are the intellectual equivalent of tech support: the more deeply you look, the less seems to be there. The outside world continues to see the Net as an atom-smashing alien force, when it is, in fact, a transforming technology whose future nature and impact remains unclear. There is the persistent belief out there that for the Net and the Web to be interesting, they must be portrayed as changing everything about everything, and the search for the seer who can explain how has been relentless, although not by the book-buying public. This has given rise to a whole genre of Cyber BS.
Weinberger is obviously bright and observant. And he's quite correct in suggesting that the hyperlinking era the Web begins is astounding, even revolutionary. But is it changing the nature of our lives? Decide for yourselves.
Weinberger proposes four concepts (plus the nature of life itself) that the Web is altering: he uses eBay as an illustration.
- Space. eBay is a Web space that occupies no space, whose links are based not on contiguity but on human interest. eBay demonstrates that the geography of the Web is as ephemeral as human interest iself, each of us looking across the space that is eBay and seeing vastly different landscapes -- of games, quilts, Star Wars memorabilia, battery chargers.
- Time. The real world, Weinberger says, is a series of ticks to which schedules are tied. As he investigated different kinds of eBay auctions, checking back every few hours to see if he'd been outbid on quilts, "I felt as if I were returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted. I could break off in the middle when, for example, my son came home, and go back whenever I wanted."
- Self. Buyers and sellers on eBay adopt a name by which they will be known. The real world person behind the handle firewife30 may have other eBay identities, as well. Unlike non-virtual selves, these eBay selves are intermittent and, most important, they are in writing.
- Knowledge. Weinberger began his eBay experience ignorant about quilts. But he learned by listening to other quilters and wound up knowing quite a bit.
The upshot? "If a simple auction at eBay is based on new assumptions about space, time, self and knowledge, the Web is more than a place for disturbed teen-agers to try out roles and more than a good place to buy cheap quilts."
The Web has sent an enormous jolt through our culture, he continues, zapping our economy, our ideas about the sharing of creative works, possibly even our institutions such as religion and government. Suppose that the Web is a new world we're just beginning to inhabit. We can't characterize ourselves without simultaneously drawing a picture of how the world seems to us, Weinberger says, nor can we describe our world without describing the type of people we are. If we are entering a new world, then we are also becoming new people.
Heady stuff. Weinberger, an NPR commentator and the publisher of JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization) understands hyperlinks and their stunning impact. It isn't as if his observations are wrong. The things he sees are new, interesting and significant.
But his book also reminds us that this age of Cybertheorizing began to die with the demise of the original Wired. This is bad news for over-heated tech writers and academics feasting on cyber-culture courses. In case Weinberger hasn't noticed -- and he hasn't, if the book is any indication -- the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing. For better or worse, we remain the same people we were. You could argue that the Web has triggered a monumental wave of hostility, self-referential blabber and commercialism. In the post dot-com era, we see that the Net and the Web aren't changing everything about the world, just taking the things people have always liked to do -- shop, read, yak, play, masturbate -- and making them easier. Business and politicians are also drearily unchanged. Even the hackers have been largely tamed by lawsuits and the numerous fences sprouting all over the cyber frontier.
"Once we are on the Web," Weinberger claims, "we find the ground has dropped out from beneath us. The normal constraints, on which we have built the common sense that guides us, fall away. And so we get to improvise and to invent... We are sharing this new world not because we have to but because we want to. We are sharing this world not because we find ourselves next to someone due to the inevitable accident of proximity but because we have chosen to join with someone based on the common ground of shared passions."
Is this your Net, your Web? I don't think so. The ground seems pretty solid where I go, and normal constraints are everywhere.
I'd like to get on Weinberger's Web. The one I can access is increasingly hard-headed and utilitarian, dominated by movie reservatiion sites, customized news delivery, retail ordering, and the ubiquity of digital communications -- mailing lists, e-mail, IM systems. Flamers and spammers have driven many underground, where we communicate in exclusive media more peacefully in peace, but with a less diverse and decidedly non-passionate group of people.
It's too bad, really, but it seems to be the contemporary reality of life online. Small Pieces Loosely Joined is not convincing. The age of the cyber-manifesto is ending. The Web isn't altering the nature of reality. It is, of course, only reflecting.
You can purchase Small Pieces Loosely Joined at Fatbrain. Want to see your own review here? Read the review guidelines first, then use Slashdot's webform.
Assuming that Katz's premise on Weinberger's previous work being inaccurate, dated, and incorrect in it's vision is acceptable, why would anyone care to read a work by this same author when he suddenly changes his viewpoint to match the status quo? Weinberger is a hype machine, feeding off commonly held beliefs about the net, packaging them in a written form, and trying to turn a buck. He isn't visionary (but he's obviously smart, if he's making a buck or two off this drivel). We could go into a point-by-point dispute on Weinberger's premise of the net redefining space, time, etc, but why bother? This is mainstream psuedobabble aimed at the solar plexus of the fickle masses wanting to be told what they already believe to be true about the 'net.
This is from the same guy who brought us Junis from Afghanistan, reading slashdot and watching movies on his Commodore?
If you want to "end Cyber BS", start with yourself!
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Not to get too deep into Katz bashing territory, but I seem to remember Jon (like most of us) screaming from the mountain how The Web was going to change everything about our lives not 2 years ago. But now, it seems, that "The Revolution" has met with some resistance, the new trendy thing to do is bash ourselves for being so stupid, and talk about how The Web is not fullfilling our expectations after all.
Yes, the heady days of '99 are long gone, but that doesn't mean The Web can't still change our lives for the better.
I'd have to agree with the reviewer. The internet, and the web, have not so much transformed life, as enabled it.
We used to shop by catalogue and phone, now we shop by point and click.
We used to talk to distant friends by phone and letter, now we do it by email and web page, conference software and the like.
While the internet has made some things easier, I, for one, don't see that it has created a paradigm shift in any area of culture or social interaction.
Later . . . . . . WebBug
To be honest, if it were the end of "cyber BS(ing)," you'd no longer have editor access to Slashdot, now would you, Katz? :P
Do you like German cars?
'In case Weinberger hasn't noticed -- and he hasn't, if the book is any indication -- the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing.'
Uhm, I disagree here. The web is whatever you want it to be. I look a lot of documentation as well as research items constantly. It can be argued that for some people, this is all their is. Ok, but if that is the case, then why are there something on the order of 9 Gabazazillion pages out there, dedicated to everything from Babettes' page of Dog stuff to Slashdot?
There is more, and this short-sided, slef-important, blowhard doesn't realize this, then why should I bother reading his drivel?
Sent from your iPad.
...JonKatz's last article?
;-)
I didn't realize this was by Katz till I read the flamers at -1... If Katz really believes the web to be as boring as he suggests it is here, what's up with every other post he has ever made?
Perhaps he could help me reconcile his position here with his position everywhere else?
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I have to admit that I was rather amused at this.... for someone to analyze the web in regards to space, time, self and knowledge, but use eBay as examples, made me laugh out loud.
One might sum it up as 'I buy stuff on eBay, therefore I am.'.
Regardless of why the web was designed in the first place, within the past several years, it has evolved from an Information medium, to a marketing, e-commerce medium. People share information, pictures of their newborn baby, recipes, links to their favorite game or movie webpages, pornography, and an uncountable number of other things. People (and businesses) also use the web as a medium to sell their products and services. As more people (end users) become comfortable and able to use the web, these businesses would be daft not to take advantage of this new medium. It's easier, faster, and cheaper to advertise on the web (and email) than any other way.
I might be straying off my point here a bit, so I'll end my comment with the following statement:
The web is a medium for people to do what they otherwise would have done anyway through other means.
People used to have photo albums of baby pictures that they showed to their relatives. Now they're online. Some people used to have BBSs to trade files and pictures. Now there are warez sites. People used to mail their resumes to prospective employers with postage stamps (everyone remember what those are? By the way, right now it's 34 cents), but instead now, they email resumes and cover letters, submitting applications electronically on webpages. The web has simplified many lives, but if someone were to come to me and say that it has altered reality, then I would probably start calling the men in the white coats to take them away. Reality is reality. The web is the web.
And they said zombies weren't real!
mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing.
Sounds like he's talking about TV to me.
Try replacing "cyber" with, say "really-big-network-I-don't-quite-understand", and the B.S. might just tone down.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Wow, media in general has become rather disturbingly cynical, haven't they? I mean, 2 years ago, the web was going to change EVERYTHING... a bit optimistic, but that's just "the way things were".
Today, the web has changed NOTHING, even though it is obvious that it has made a number of impacts on millions of lives. The web has changed a great deal, and cynically copping out that the net is nothing but porn and ads and sales is cheap journalism.
Oh no! I can already see Jon Katz with a cardboard sign around his neck that reads "Will write Slashdot articles, and use the 'l' key instead of the '1' key when writing dates in the 20th century, for food" ;-)
The problem is that this mindset remains when people log off. Remember McDonalds getting sued for serving hot coffee? This kind of thing will only get worse in the future when the children who were raised by the web (the 'Net generation, anyone?) enter adulthood with the expectation that they will never be personally responsible for their actions.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Every time a guy gets a threesome, somewhere in heaven an angel gets his wings. --Cary Tennis
Those of us who are wired 24/7 (or pretty close) don't realize that we are the exception not the rule. That being said, I think that Weinberger makes for an interesting read even though I don't always agree with him (just like Katz).
this is getting old and so are you
blog
the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing
This is an opinon, not a fact. What you get out of the web is (usually) exactly what you're looking for from it. I can see how Mr. Katz can theorize that the web is mostly about these things if they're what he uses it for. But, as for myself: the web is a resource for information (and not necessarily news). And I'm sure others have different views. The point is: the web, by its very nature, isn't about anything. It's a medium.
The interesting aspect of it is that it is such a far-reaching and innovative medium, which, as it sounds, is what the book is about. (I have not read the book, though, so I will not talk on it. Although, I have my doubts as to whether Katz has actually read it...) --- David Weinberger, one of the co-authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual, is one of many celebrated practitioners of what loosely came to be known as cybertheory. The Manifesto began with the memorable phrase "People of Earth" and was "aimed squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America," one reviewer alleged. (You remember those days. Everything about the Net was aimed at the solar plexus of one thing or another). The book purported to show how the Internet was turning business upside down. But that, of course, was then, and this is now. Nobody seems to have noticed that if anything has been turned upside down, it's the Net. Weinberger has struck again in his new book Small Pieces Loosely Joined, (Perseus) a "unified theory of the Web." This time, the Web is changing life itself. Is he on the same Web? Mostly, what this book suggests is the end of CyberBS. And good riddance. Small Pieces Loosely Joined author David Weinberger pages 211 publisher Perseus rating 4/10 reviewer Jon Katz ISBN 0-7382-0543-5 summary the Web is changing life itself Despite the staggering amount of hype everyone has had to endure (and some of us have contributed to), Weinberger's premise is that the Web hasn't been hyped enough. The Web, he claims, is not only altering social institutions like business and government, but transforming fundamental concepts of our culture: space, time, reality itself. This is the sort of stuff that gets publishers, media people and academics breathing heavily, even though reality suggests that a) it simply isn't so, and b) such declarations are the intellectual equivalent of tech support: the more deeply you look, the less seems to be there. The outside world continues to see the Net as an atom-smashing alien force, when it is, in fact, a transforming technology whose future nature and impact remains unclear. There is the persistent belief out there that for the Net and the Web to be interesting, they must be portrayed as changing everything about everything, and the search for the seer who can explain how has been relentless, although not by the book-buying public. This has given rise to a whole genre of Cyber BS. Weinberger is obviously bright and observant. And he's quite correct in suggesting that the hyperlinking era the Web begins is astounding, even revolutionary. But is it changing the nature of our lives? Decide for yourselves. Weinberger proposes four concepts (plus the nature of life itself) that the Web is altering: he uses eBay as an illustration. - Space. eBay is a Web space that occupies no space, whose links are based not on contiguity but on human interest. eBay demonstrates that the geography of the Web is as ephemeral as human interest iself, each of us looking across the space that is eBay and seeing vastly different landscapes -- of games, quilts, Star Wars memorabilia, battery chargers. - Time. The real world, Weinberger says, is a series of ticks to which schedules are tied. As he investigated different kinds of eBay auctions, checking back every few hours to see if he'd been outbid on quilts, "I felt as if I were returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted. I could break off in the middle when, for example, my son came home, and go back whenever I wanted." - Self. Buyers and sellers on eBay adopt a name by which they will be known. The real world person behind the handle firewife30 may have other eBay identities, as well. Unlike non-virtual selves, these eBay selves are intermittent and, most important, they are in writing. - Knowledge. Weinberger began his eBay experience ignorant about quilts. But he learned by listening to other quilters and wound up knowing quite a bit. The upshot? "If a simple auction at eBay is based on new assumptions about space, time, self and knowledge, the Web is more than a place for disturbed teen-agers to try out roles and more than a good place to buy cheap quilts." The Web has sent an enormous jolt through our culture, he continues, zapping our economy, our ideas about the sharing of creative works, possibly even our institutions such as religion and government. Suppose that the Web is a new world we're just beginning to inhabit. We can't characterize ourselves without simultaneously drawing a picture of how the world seems to us, Weinberger says, nor can we describe our world without describing the type of people we are. If we are entering a new world, then we are also becoming new people. Heady stuff. Weinberger, an NPR commentator and the publisher of JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization) understands hyperlinks and their stunning impact. It isn't as if his observations are wrong. The things he sees are new, interesting and significant. But his book also reminds us that this age of Cybertheorizing began to die with the demise of the original Wired. This is bad news for over-heated tech writers and academics feasting on cyber-culture courses. In case Weinberger hasn't noticed -- and he hasn't, if the book is any indication -- the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing. For better or worse, we remain the same people we were. You could argue that the Web has triggered a monumental wave of hostility, self-referential blabber and commercialism. In the post dot-com era, we see that the Net and the Web aren't changing everything about the world, just taking the things people have always liked to do -- shop, read, yak, play, masturbate -- and making them easier. Business and politicians are also drearily unchanged. Even the hackers have been largely tamed by lawsuits and the numerous fences sprouting all over the cyber frontier. "Once we are on the Web," Weinberger claims, "we find the ground has dropped out from beneath us. The normal constraints, on which we have built the common sense that guides us, fall away. And so we get to improvise and to invent... We are sharing this new world not because we have to but because we want to. We are sharing this world not because we find ourselves next to someone due to the inevitable accident of proximity but because we have chosen to join with someone based on the common ground of shared passions." Is this your Net, your Web? I don't think so. The ground seems pretty solid where I go, and normal constraints are everywhere. I'd like to get on Weinberger's Web. The one I can access is increasingly hard-headed and utilitarian, dominated by movie reservatiion sites, customized news delivery, retail ordering, and the ubiquity of digital communications -- mailing lists, e-mail, IM systems. Flamers and spammers have driven many underground, where we communicate in exclusive media more peacefully in peace, but with a less diverse and decidedly non-passionate group of people. It's too bad, really, but it seems to be the contemporary reality of life online. Small Pieces Loosely Joined is not convincing. The age of the cyber-manifesto is ending. The Web isn't altering the nature of reality. It is, of course, only reflecting.
- Space. All those eBay servers have to be housed somewhere.
- Time. This guy is stretching it a little if he thinks eBay is unrelated to time. Since, you know, their auctions are pretty much based on a closing time and they tell you how much time you have left to bid, down to the second.
- Self. I'll give him that one.
- Knowledge. I hope he took it all with a grain of salt. Even if he was learning about quilts. There's all kinds of misinformation out there.
And what happened to those two kids, anyway? Back in Idaho at minimum-wage jobs now that they are no longer this year's hot thing?
the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing"
This is an opinon, not a fact.
What you get out of the web is (usually) exactly what you're looking for from it.
I can see how Mr. Katz can theorize that the web is mostly about these things if they're what he uses it for. But, as for myself: the web is a resource for information (and not necessarily news). And I'm sure others have different views.
The point is: the web, by its very nature, isn't about anything. It's a medium.
Always hit the "preview" button. You can't go back and fix it. You'll just look like an ass.
-joshjs
That Katz should write an article on the end of cyber BS. His writing has a worse S/N than cosmic radio raves.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
- Time. The real world, Weinberger says, is a series of ticks to which schedules are tied. As he investigated different kinds of eBay auctions, checking back every few hours to see if he'd been outbid on quilts, "I felt as if I were returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted. I could break off in the middle when, for example, my son came home, and go back whenever I wanted."
The same exact thing goes for books. This isn't revolutionary and new. For hundreds of years people have put down books when their son came home and gone back whenever they wanted.
Now I know ...
To determine what the conventional wisdom is, what everyone already thinks, and has therefore already been discounted by the market, just read Katz ...
With the dot-com implosion and the resulting Internet hangover, my job has been a lot easier the last while. It seems my company has begrudingly come to realize that the Web is just another channel and other set of technologies on which to transact. However, books like Weinberger's tend to fan the flames of Weblust and bolster such executives' deep belief that the Web will, indeed, change the World.
*sigh* I despair. The Web is wonderful. I like the Web. My kids like the Web. My wife likes the Web. It's good at some stuff, it's bad at some stuff. If anything, it's made us more impatient with the World (i.e. I want that information now!!). But in the end, I don't believe it's changed my own context in the world too much. I still play with my kids, chat over the fence with my neighbours, scratch my ass when it's itchy, and wonder what tomorrow will be like.
For the Web pundits who lurch zombie-like towards the wonderfully Webby tomorrow, could their real dilema be that they cannot function in today's world?
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
How is today's life different than 100 years ago? We still learn to walk and talk followed by more learning until we think we are ready to participate in adult society. We look for partners of the opposite sex (except for some that don't go for that sort of a thing). We want to be loved and accepted. We grow older and wiser (even though the kids still think they know more than we do). We get old and then we die.
The internet isn't all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it changes some things but basically life is still life and people are still people.
Coding Blog
Sure the web has changed some human behavious (or more precisely, changed the way we instantiate the same old behaviours), but changed the very nature of life? Not likely. What seems to have changed is the amount of bathwater being consumed by the technocultural press
To address the e-bay examples used:
- Space. eBay is a Web space that occupies no space, whose links are based not on contiguity but on human interest. eBay demonstrates that the geography of the Web is as ephemeral as human interest iself, each of us looking across the space that is eBay and seeing vastly different landscapes -- of games, quilts, Star Wars memorabilia, battery chargers.
Relationships based on human interest, not contiguity? That would mean I'd have to leave home to make friends
- Time. The real world, Weinberger says, is a series of ticks to which schedules are tied. As he investigated different kinds of eBay auctions, checking back every few hours to see if he'd been outbid on quilts, "I felt as if I were returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted. I could break off in the middle when, for example, my son came home, and go back whenever I wanted."
Like a book, perhaps? Or stepping out of a meeting room for a while? Imagine that, life continues while you do other things, and you can later rejoin.
- Self. Buyers and sellers on eBay adopt a name by which they will be known. The real world person behind the handle firewife30 may have other eBay identities, as well. Unlike non-virtual selves, these eBay selves are intermittent and, most important, they are in writing.
RPG. Or even the fact that although I know the JonKatz id and the inimitable writing style, does anyone really know the full person?
- Knowledge. Weinberger began his eBay experience ignorant about quilts. But he learned by listening to other quilters and wound up knowing quite a bit.
Like being a newbie who joins a club? The end of life as we know it (TM)
We can't characterize ourselves without simultaneously drawing a picture of how the world seems to us, Weinberger says, nor can we describe our world without describing the type of people we are ...
In case Weinberger hasn't noticed -- and he hasn't, if the book is any indication -- the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing.
I wonder what Jon has bookmarked?
Nope, no sig
Hmm. Imagine that - hundreds of groups available based soley on common interest and not geographical location. You could have hundreds of different groups of people, all just banded for common goals.
Of course, such a system would need a hierarchy of some sort, or you could never find the group you wanted. How about something like comp.*, alt.*, uk.local.* etc..
Oh wait on a minute, it's possible I've heard of something similar before...
Cheers,
Ian
The Revolution Will Not Be Webcast
.jpgs of Bill Gates
.NET will change your computing experience.
(with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to jack in, log on, and zone out.
You will not be able to download pr0n and warez,
Eat ramen while waiting for a Flash movie to load,
Because the revolution will not be webcast.
The revolution will not be webcast.
The revolution will not be load-balanced by Akamai
Across huge server farms to maintain the proper bandwidth.
The revolution will not bring you
Giving a Powerpoint presentation with Steve
Ballmer, Jeff Raikes, and Craig Mundie to demonstrate
How
The revolution will not be webcast.
The revolution will not be served to you by
Scott McNealy's Sun Microsystems and will not
feature a backend by Larry Ellison's Oracle.
The revolution will not optimize your internet connection.
The revolution will not consolidate all your debts into one easy monthly payment
The revolution will not let you punch the monkey
To win twenty dollars, because
The revolution will not be webcast, brother.
There will be no pictures of Sam Donaldson and Vint Cerf
At the Webby Awards in San Francisco with
Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences members Matt Groening and Beck.
Plastic, Peter Pan, PBS and Plus Magazine
Are not going to win crap.
The revolution will not be webcast.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
WTO Protesters on indymedia.com
There will be no pictures of ICANN board members
Receiving bribes from Network Solutions, Inc.
There will be no Real Video or JPEG stills of John
C. Dvorak muttering conspiracy theories and no articles by
Jon Katz with the bleeding heart that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Wired News, Salon.com, and Slashdot.org
will no longer be so damned relevant, and
No one will care what Wil Wheaton has to
Say on his weblog because the geeks
will be in the streets looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be webcast.
There will be no pages of webcams refreshing every
30 seconds with no pictures of half-naked women
Prancing and pimply-faced males scratching themselves.
The theme song will not be posted to MP3.com and
Will not be shared using Napster, Audiogalaxy, Gnutella,
iMesh, BearShare or Kazaa.
The revolution will not be webcast.
The revolution will never return a 404 Not Found,
403 Forbidden, or 500 Internal Server Error.
You will never have to worry about the virus in your
Email, the cracker at your firewall, or the bug in your OS.
The revolution will not waste 2 million dollars on a Superbowl Ad.
The revolution will not find you job opportunities.
The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be webcast, WILL not be webcast,
WILL NOT BE WEBCAST.
The revolution will not be in cyberspace, brothers;
The revolution will be live.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
No offence to Katz, but has anybody else read the book and is able to comment on it? I guess it's like I already know what Katz's spin on it is going to be before I read his review (and sure enough, it was bang-on right when I read the review).
gillbates pontificated :
"Because the web so easily offers "anonymity" (even though it's not real anonymity - anyone can find your IP @), people are more willing to do things that they would otherwise never think of doing - lie, cheat, steal, etc.."
Don't forget whore for karma
oh, and the ever popular troll
Strange as it seems, Katz has actually made sense in his last two articles.
If you can't admit it, you're a loser.
And the one I access is dominated by Slashdot, K5, and a dozen weblogs.
It's not like this is broadcast media. It's not like you have to surf to the same sites as the majority. You see what you choose to see, and if you're a patsy for mass marketers, you have no one to blame but yourself.
And that's what makes the Web different.
IMHO, the reason that the web failed to deliver its promise of turning the traditional pyramidal structure of our economy upside down is because the alternative structure - one of de-centralized authority, control, and profit accumulation - is anathema to capitalism. This suggests that capitalism is not, ultimately the most desired form of commerce.
Bear with me for a bit: Markist theory describes the capitalist as being the one who controls the ways and means of production; this puts him at the top of the pyramid since all goods and services flow only through him. He's a record company mogul who owns CD writers, and the only way you can get Britney Spears' latest offering is to buy it from him.
But the internet should have changed all of that. By enabling the cheap mass production of the goods and services (those that can be digitized, i.e., software and data), the 'ways and means of production' has become de-centralized and available to all. We can get BS's latest stuff off Napster now, so the record company mogul, who in reality adds no value to the music itself, has lost his vaunted position atop the production / distribution pyramid.
In an extrapolated and idealized from of this logical trend, the provider receives direct payment for services / goods and there is no capitalist controlling the flow. Basically, Britney's music is free, but you want to go see her show and you are willing to pay for a ticket to see her in person. The Britney Spears show is still a scarce commodity even though her music is not.
So, in a world that obeys the forces of nature, the capitalist realizes that he is in a dead business and must find work elsewhere, while the masses enjoy the intrinsic benefits of the internet: peer-to-peer sharing of massively produced content.
Unfortunately, the capitalist today is unwilling to submit to the inevitable and so finds it necessary to prop up his archaic revenue stream by having the behavior of the masses controlled through legislation (i.e., DMCA, SDMI, DRM, M.O.U.S.E.). The complaint of the capitalist is that this is necessary because the content providers do add value and without the hard-wired revenue stream they will lose the hierarchical structure (the pyramid) that makes them what they are and insures value in their product. That is, Disney would go out of business if everyone could just download Snow White off the internet.
So that's why we need Campaign Finance Reform in the Internet Era.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
- pjammer
The Pjammer Chronicles --
No more cyber bullshit?
bien dit, gamin.
Nobody seems to have noticed that if anything has been turned upside down, it's the Net
Well, I think it's clear what happened. Corporate America went up to the Net, slapped it in the face, and said "That's enough of your shit! You fucking bitch!"
add a
See here.
[Insert pithy quote here]
The two most fundamental impacts the 'net and the web have had on me and my family is communications and access to information.
The first is a no-brainer, I've never been a letter writer (the postal kind) and with our busy schedules, the chances of catching an old friend who lives in the same city, much less the ones scattered across the country, on the phone is vanishly slim. Via e-mail (I know, I know, it ain't the web, but now it is ubiquitous enough that just about everyone I know has e-mail) I am almost daily contact with a bunch of people I haven't seen in years (and a few I've never met face-to-face).
I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to go back to not having the WWW to access almost any kind of information quickly. Flip by a movie and see an actor, but you can't remember his name? Look up the movie in the TV listings, then hit the IMDB to find out. Want to know what's playing at the theater? You don't have to buy a paper or listen to the theater recording (if you can get through). Need to know an obscure fact? Want to find out how to fix your clothes dryer? Looking for a copy of "The Night Before Christmas" to read to your kids on the night before Christmas? Want to look up and purchase an obscure, out of print book? Want to read a three week old article from a foreign newspaper?
These are everyday uses of the net that people already take for granted. News, sex, and retailing doesn't cover it by a long shot. These are fundamental changes in the way we do things and interact with others...
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
It's a tool. A neutral tool. It cannot replace real-world resources like libraries, news media, and retail stores. It can only SUPPLEMENT them. There will always be people who want or need to hold a real book in hand, or to pick up and examine something they want to buy. The only way the Web is going to really change anything is if the users of it decide to let it do so within the context of their own life.
We are ALL -- each and every one of us -- ultimately responsible for our own actions, and how we run our lives. The Web does not change that in any way. The Internet in general, and the Web in particular, is only one more tool that our race has invented to communicate (and I mean 'communicate' in a very broad sense -- ANY sort of interaction with another living creature, human or otherwise, can be considered a form of 'communication' in the strictest sense).
I think that, if more people realized this, there would have been a lot less hype and a great deal more common sense about the 'net in the past few years.
I'D Kill For Anchovies?
Don't waste mod points modding me down. Just mod the parent up, up, up, simply brilliant. AND TOTALLY on topic.
is the way back machine possible in any other medium? i don't think so. it may at this momment be about markets/marketing, but that's like saying that telephones are about providian visa cards (do they really need to call five times a week?). the marketing gibberish/cyber bs got way out in front of the cart hauling the mother load. it's on its way and it truly is about information. how we pay for it is still at issue, and how people make money off of it is as well, but access to everything is what the net is about. as the article discussing the wbm mentions, when we begin to think of the web as the primary medium, the world will change. not our realities but our thought processes.
Space. eBay is a Web space that occupies no space, whose links are based not on contiguity but on human interest. eBay demonstrates that the geography of the Web is as ephemeral as human interest iself, each of us looking across the space that is eBay and seeing vastly different landscapes -- of games, quilts, Star Wars memorabilia, battery chargers.
...
I think it's funny that people think this is new, that this "space" has only recently existed....
Is this so amazing? What about when you talk on the phone? Isn't that the same type of space, where that conversation happens?
second society
It's nice that Katz has access to a book before it's been released to the general public.
Just to continue the Katz-basho I would rather anyone else review this book once it is published (4/2002). I would rather have chromatic's (or even CmdrTaco's) view on this then Katz. Besides, I hope that more than eBay is used as foundation for this cybertheorizing. But it's hard to determine the utility of a book from the cover jacket and Katz's so-so review
i thought he was announcing his retirement from slashdot. too bad it wasn't the case.
Unless you're Marshall MacLuhan. Then the web is about itself. Which to some extent is true; the Web is about organizing and retrieving information in ways which don't abandon old ways, but generally extend them.
:-)
Earlier posters claimed that the examples used by the author aren't much different from a book. The index of a book could certainly be considered like web hyperlinks... The true idea of hyperlinks as being bi-directional would probably move the web into a space where you could claim that it is doing something truly different and forcing the processing of information in new ways. So it becomes something more than a medium.
In any case, the experience of using the web is different from using other communication mediums... think about how you might browse Everything2... very non-linear. Maybe we haven't found a way yet to articulate how to describe the experience correctly... but there is a need to. It seems to me that cyber-theorists shouldn't be looking at how the Web will change everything, but how it has or has not changed now. An investigation of how news was generated and transmitted on Sept. 11 would be an interesting example to examine.
Okay, I better stop before I sound too much like Katz.
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
The Solar Plexus is so 90's...
This sig is worse than my last.
After reading 2 of your articles, I have decided to become gay.
a rave review of the cluetrain manifesto by hemos
and The Secrets of Linux by katz himself
(that katz article just gets funnier with age)
Mostly, what this book suggests is the end of CyberBS. And good riddance.
Well, gee, I for one will certainly miss your trenchant commentary here in the post Columbine era.
--saint
First, I would like to say that for the most part, being a cynic, I can't help but agree with the points made in the review. I have not read the book, I am simply in agreement with Katz's perspective. On the whole (IMHO), the Web affects few people in dramatic ways.
That said, and now straying Offtopic, the problem with the article, and what makes it difficult to digest and get a sense of it's *direction* is the fact that Katz seems completely unable to think for himself. Most people seem to have a point of view, or set of principles which guide and form their opinions. Of all the Katz articles I have read, he never, ever, has anything to say. In effect, Katz offers the reader no value in the time spent reading his critiques. Perhaps if there was some consistency to his writing that gave us some insight into what *his* opinion was, rather than this flip-flop wishy-washy game of playing devil's advocate. Without a style or foundation to start from, he is simply a parrot, trying on a different persona week to week.
Pick a stance for Christ's sake already and run with it, Jon. Today the net brings us closer, tommorrow you'll be saying that it drives a wedge between the haves and have-nots. Yesterday P2P was revolutionary and the masses were poised to overthrow our corporate taskmasters. Now you say it's all pr0n and chat? Boy, if it wasn't for your savvy compass, I'd be lost. Stop trolling and baiting your readers, switching sides will-nilly. Is this really your opinion, or the is it the one you feel will generate the most discussion? Better to speak your mind, back it up, and take your lumps. Instead you pander to your audience, depriving them of a writer's unique perspective, in exchange for the transitory acceptance of the mob.
I'm not sure if he was taking shots at himself, but this:
Despite the staggering amount of hype everyone has had to endure (and some of us have contributed to)...
is exactly what I'm talking about. Have you had an epiphany? Have you come to realise you are The Hypist?
Another one:
This is bad news for over-heated tech writers...
Yes, Jon it certainly is.
I don't know if you have to fill out your articles, or (giving you the benefit of the doubt) you are limited in how much you can write, but perhaps next time try excerpting a chapter or a coherent piece of the book in question, and then critique it. Lambaste the author, agree with him/her or just put a different spin on their writings, even extending it to make it applicable to your audience.
Instead, you snip out a few choice pieces on eBay (eBay! Jeebus!) and then pull a post-modern cynic routine on us. Thanks Jon, you're one of us now. Come on man, at least try.
Drifting back ontopic, I feel that Jon's "opinion" is lucid. The web is an extension of our lives, and it has and will continue to enhance and enrich our lives, but it is not the revolutionary force that was promised. No surprise there, few things are. Radio, TV, Teflon, nuclear power. All these technologies have enchanced our lives and enriched them, but no one technology is revolutionary, only the aspirations of those who wish to benefit and profit from them. The closest thing to a cultural earthquake we have is the *sum* of our achievements over the last century.
I'm sure that with the advent of television many speculations and ventures were born and then died indignant deaths, both culturally and commercially, for better or worse. So it goes for our current baby, The Internet. Basically, (IMHO) I think we all know this, and it doesn't take Katz to tell us this.
So Jon, go home, take a bath, and find a subject you actually have an opinion about, even better - find something you're passionate about, and come back next week with something that this audience can chew on, OK?
... because it isn't worth more than that
Let's see, the web is not a revolutionary, life altering, mind boggling, country destroying, business ruining, profit making machine.
Go figure.
The problem is, everyone is expecting the internet to create a new way of life not supplement it. The internet was not designed to change the world. It was designed to make information accessable. That's the original premise under which it was formed, and that's what it should be used for. Now of course information varies, depending on your view, but to me, if it can be sent via electronic signal, it is information.
What ruined the image of the internet was when the government stepped back in to claim what was once theirs. Just as the wild west was tamed when the government stepped in (though Tame is a loose word) so to was the internet tamed.
No longer to hackers prowl the wires, seeking whatever fancy strikes them, no longer is the internet a largely unregulated area with it's own rules. Now it's just another human institution.
Cyber predators are no more prevalent on the internet than real life predators. The difference is, the internet is loaded with glamour, and so people assume that lifes laws don't apply.
No, the internet is not a big let down to people who have common sense. It's only a big let down to sensationalists like the person who wrote this book and to people like Jon Katz who live off of controversy.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
And speaking of BS, Who's Rigging the Dump Katz Poll?
Nice book review. Thanks!
Recently, I picked up the roleplaying game De Profundis, which is a game that involves roleplay by exchanging actual physical letters. And as I was writing one of these, I got to think about it, and realized that after eight years of writing e-mail, it seemed to me there was something rather neat about the idea of an actual hand-written letter--the idea that, in a few days, the other person would be holding in his hands the very sheet of paper you are writing the words on, instead of simply seeing a representation of those words on a computer screen.
:)
It's kind of funny, when you think about it. All these years of using the 'net have instilled in me a different concept of what is "normal". Whereas eight years ago e-mail seemed amazingly out of the ordinary, now I have a similar feeling about snail mail.
Or maybe I'm just nuts.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Reality is reality. The web is still part of what the *rest* of us call reality -- not just some nebulous floaty cloud of UML shapes.
Because the web was at some point *not* there, and now it is, it has changed reality by existing. Of course lives are different now. Of course there are new metaphors, new flavors to experiences that touch the new medium. That's what any new technology is like.
Does that mean that time and space bow to its novelty? No.
--the verb
E-Bay is perhaps the example of the changes that the web is making in society. E-bay enables individuals to trade items with other individuals.
I can buy items that fit my hobby, Alan Cox can get the weird hardware he needs to debug Linux problems, This guy can find Quilts, someone else can find a dashboard for a 57 Pontiac. This is either a new form of capitalism, or the end of Capitalism as it has previously been practiced. Look up the Bagel Effect Power is slowly moving to the edges of the system away from the centre. Folks like the RIAA, and the MPAA are fighting the web precisly because their business plan is based on their living in the center and colecting rents. No center, no business.
E-bay is at the center - but is very careful to only provide the minimal anount of glue that is needed to hold the system together. (Other services like payments are options) Once I find an item and bid on it - if I win, I deal with the seller, and e-bay is no longer involved. (although I am encouraged to contribute to the trust ranking of the seller).
The web has changed everything, but it is such a subtle change that it is hard to pinpoint.
Another Wild-Eyed CANADIAN.
> The end of CyberBS. And good riddance
Wouldn't that put Katz out of business?
The internet may be revolutionizing the Western world, but it still has a long way to go until it affects the lives of those elsewhere, such as Asia and Africa. Having lived in the Philippines for 4 years (1996-1999, and a three-week trip just a month ago) I know that internet access is painfully scarce. It is available in the largest cities (Manila, Davao City, ...) but not elsewhere. And what is available is dreadfully slow--I can remember waiting around 5 minutes for Google to load so I could type in my search entry. Even on my trip last month there were times I couldn't even get Google to load at all.
So, although the internet may be changing a part of the world, there is a great portion of the world that has not been impacted by the internet--it is either too slow to be useful, or simply not available at all.
Much as I hate the term 'cyber', and not withstanding the excellent take on Gil Scot Heron above, the net has certainly aided activist networking.
The first such widespread and effective incident of cyberactivism that I know of was the rapid creation of a solidarity network for the Zapatistas. Within hours of their January 1, 1994 uprising, people were learning of the rebels through the rebels' own words - and organizing coordinated, real-world demonstrations.
Arguably, within weeks to months, there was a larger solidarity network for the Zapatistas than any other third-world conflict since the Vietnam war. Also arguably, the world-wide resistance stayed the military's hand to some extent - there was not the slaughter that one saw in El Salvador or Guatemala.
The WTO protests are another example - and these would not have been possible either without the successful, mostly European (though certainly world-wide) struggle against the MAI - spread to the US through the web, and by-passing traditional leftist groups.
Recently the resistance to the US's latest imperialist adventure (jeez, I sound like a marxist - but what can I say when the new Ambassador to Afghanistan used to work for Unocal?) spread and networked quickly through the web. The various peace networks grew so much quicker than they did in the Gulf War (and this latest disaster is even more popular than that one).
Though Katz mentions news, I think it is important to note how alternative media uses the web. I don't live where I can hear Counterspin (www.fair.org) or Pacifica (or Free Pacifica for that matter), but I can get the webcast. Freedom of the press is really for those who own the press - but www.commondreams.org or www.zmag.org can afford a domain name and a server. While search engines charging for placement might not show the alternatives, they can still be found and spread from person to person. Webpages such as that are more than just documents handed out, they are a constant connection, a community (ack! damn buzzword).
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
The Web isn't altering the nature of reality. It is, of course, only reflecting.
This statement is in sharp contrast of his article of two days ago in which he writes:
That Americans have become increasingly disconnected from one another and the social capital that binds people since the rise of TV and the Net is an idea much debated since Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community two years ago (the book is now out in paperback). The Net -- ironically the world' s most connective medium -- could be radically advancing that trend.
He goes on to illustrate the ways in which individuals are "turning increasingly inward". So, I want to know: Is the internet a contributing factor in this growing social disconnection (altering reality), or are people's online habits merely an indication of what is occurring in RL (reflecting reality)?
I love it when writers and academics sit around arguing about what history will be twenty years from now. Everyone's concern with the web for business, its social impact and how it changes our lives is very short-sighted. Who was arguing this about Gopher or FTP? It's just a protocol on the Internet. It's good for some things and not good for others.
However, the internet is evolving. Information will be transmitted wirelessly and it will be transmitting back and forth between microchips in everyday objects. Sooner or later VR will become common place and someone will want a way to operate in VR across the internet.
The internet *will* have a major impact on our lives -- the web was about 10% of the impact. Think of it as just the equivalent of the printing press -- it was revolutionary, but there was still a lot of important development yet to occur.
Regardless, talking about the effect of something like the web (which is 8? years old) is silly. We won't -- can't -- know where all the cards will fall for some time. The real *problem* (if there is one) doesn't have anything to do with the technology. It has to do with the ridiculous hype machine that modern journalism has become. it either REALLY SUCKS or is INSANELY GREAT. No journalist that I've read recently has said anything like, "The web is a useful tool for sharing information over long distances and should have a decent impact on information distribution, much like email." All they write is: "The web is going to change EVERYTHING!"
"Ginger is going to change EVERYTHING!"
"Wireless technology is going to change EVERYTHING!"
"G3 -- any day now -- is going to change EVERYTHING!"
on and on and on.
I know we all turn a deaf ear to it and have a rational sense of the actual change that is occurring on the ground level, but the public doesn't and the business men don't and it is going to take things like the Dotcom Panic to get everyone to realize what is hype and what is real. Ebay is a great site. It is one survivor of several hundred infant deaths.
Technology is useful and wonderful and has been providing people with better ways of life for hundreds of years. The hype machine is what is out of control.
__________________________
Really. If a spoon fed, customized media experience is what you're looking for, you can find that on the web. If you're looking for something different and unpredictable that has a different way of getting people to relate to one another you can find that on the web also. I just love it when people make gross generalizations about a section of the web and try to apply it to society as a whole. There are things going on that people regard as revolutionary in their own lives, whether it makes Slashdot or Wired or not. There are also people who are pretty much using the web as a more individualized version of their local newspaper or TV station.
One last quibble - "flamers and spammers" have driven people "underground"? In what universe? There's this magical thing called the delete key. Hit it and you don't have to deal with them, and if that doesn't work you can always ignore them. Most people are smart enough to figure that out. And how do you define underground in an environment where 99.9% of the activity doesn't get noticed by the mass media anyway? This is the problem with the quotes from the book and Jon Katz' review - lots of buzzwords and rhetoric, but not as much thinking.
First Ref to Cyberspace
First ref to cyberspace not as a reference to Neuromancer
For a moment, I thought I had seen an end to e-mails informing me that I can increase my penile length over five inches for a few easy monthly payments.
*sigh*
Brilliant.
Expect to see this all over the place within two days.
If not two hours.
Time to go for a nice walk outside.
In spite of the weather.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I thought Slashdot was taking down the forums... bummer.
The Revolution? Ha! For a mere penny, you can get 12 revolutions now, if you just join the AOL/Time Warner Revolution of the month club and agree to buy 12 more revolutions in the next 24 months for our low, low regular retail prices. Check off your preferred kind of revolution -
...
-- Communist
-- Religious
-- Internet-based
-- Libertarian
-- Sexual (must be 18 to select)
-- Authoritarian
-- Bloody Anarchy
Sign up by Feb 13, and you will get your very own Weatherman figurine, a 29 dollar value, so you will always know which way the wind blows.
The parent post was brilliant - I was thinking of that song, too
Don't worry... I'm sure you'll still have lots of Butt Sex at highway rest stops.
the internet is this cybernetic super-interface to civilization and theology and you name it. but, it's also just a bunch of electrons and gates. oh well. oh hey, oh well. hey -- hey -- hey. oi oi.
you know, though, that weinberger's statements are extrapolated (overly confusive) diagrams of very simple matters...
for example, weinberger analyzes EBAY to be this vast virtual world. sure, it's a large database, the but actualy world is much larger are versatile (and capable of storage) than the backup drives at ebay. i agree with the BS tag -- how can it be space occupying no space? space doesn't occupy space in the first place.
TIME? if time is a bunch of server ticks, then immortality would just be a matter of requesting a larger timeslice from god. obviously it's not that easy. time exists as a human invention -- an abstraction of the motion of objects as divided between one another. we take it for granted by ignoring some objects in reference to others; it's as simple as that. virtual time shares exist as electrons prodding gates around other electrons. it's really no more romantic than a sluice.
SELF? i don't see how an online persona is different than an irl one. they both present opporunities and challenges, and the fact is while you have to live with your real life persona, you can delete your online persona at any time. sure, it might be cybernetically plugged into your ass, but once in awhile you do have to take a shit.
KNOWLEDGE. well, wienberger likes quilts. any old hag who hangs out at his gay knitting parties would know that. what does the internet have to do with it? the medium isn't solely representative of the content -- sorry.
weinberger says the web 'zaps' out economy. yeah, like a lightning bolt striking a big fat stock pool and electrocuting everyone with their head underwater. what the hell ever.
a person who wants to become one with the 'net has to realize that the 'net is as mundane, if not moreso, than themself. this cycle does not end, despite some asshole like weinberger holding his hand out to stop the quickly spinning stone wheel of reality. i hope his hand gets ground off into soilent green chuck. ten dollars a pound on ebay! weinberger soilent green, going once... twice?
you know, i was having trouble figuring this out; whether there's an internet or not. i mean, didn't al gore invent it? for that matter, didn't bill clinton try to regulate it, and didn't george bush sr. pretend it didn't existed? didn't ronald reagan think it belonged to the military? what does all of that say about the internet user who is inxtrorably (at least of their own volition) and cybernetically tied to the net? i really don't have answers, just questions.
"now i'm finding truth is a ruined, nauseous end that nobody is pursuin' -- every famine virtual; retrovertigo... giga-giga-gilgamesh." -- mister bungle
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
It sounds like Jon's review is based on the first eight pages (of a book that won't be published until early April) in which I use shopping at eBay as a prosaic first example precisely because I figured it's a common experience. The book - the whole book - is my attempt to answer a question implicit in Jon's review. He says I'm "quite correct in suggesting that the hyperlinking era the Web begins is astounding, even revolutionary." If so, then what's it revolutionizing? If the Web is as boring and quotidian as Jon says, then what's astounding about it? For some of us, even while we're bidding on quilts at eBay or downloading porn, there's something importantly different about the Web. That's what the book's about. And one of its points is how extraordinary the ordinary is on the Web. Astonishment isn't such a bad response.
...and say that if it were truly the end of Cyber BS, maybe we wouldn't have to read Jon Katz at Slashdot anymore.
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
...quilts?
...Quilts?
...QUILTS?
...Queue You Eye El Tea Ess?
...on Ebay?
...he wrote about the transdimensional aspects of, get this, BUYING QUILTS!?!??!?!
...Coming back to a quilting auction is somehow akin to stepping into a whole new world!?
ON EBAY?!?!?!!?
Writers as pretentious as this fellow should be forced to step out of their egos and take a long, analytical, good look at themselves and their work from the eyes of a reasonably intelligent human being.
Then shot through the face. At point blank range. No survivors.
And I'm not a violent person.
I mean...
SIR
YOU ARE BIDDING ON A QUILT
AN ORNAMENTAL COVERING DEVICE MADE BY HARE LIPPED OLD LADIES
If it is truly that immersive, perhaps you should invest in a smaller monitor.
I've been reading Weinberger's book while it was evolving online. I don't buy everything he says, but I think this is a pretty unfair review. It paints Weinberger as naive, stupid, or a breathles newbie, when he certainly isn't.
It strikes me either
a) Katz is undergoing a radical 180 degree shift from techno-optimism to techno-pessimism for some reason (disillusion, boredom, bandwagon jumping, personal tragedy) and is using the review to lay his own ghosts,
or
b) he's jealous.
Of course the internet is only an information distribution medium, so you can argue that it doesn't change anything in the physical world.
But that's a bit like saying, ideas are only neurons firing. Ideas and physics interact.
And the quantitative change in information flow can have qualitative effects in the physical world, and even more so in the world of ideas. The whole point of Weinberger's book is to argue that, and to try to show that our ideas have been changed by the net, including the great fundamentals like time, space and self.
These ideas are changing constantly throughout history. It's the job of philosophers, and historians like Weinberger to track these changes, in response to new economic systems, scientific theories and cultural events.
Is the web big enough to be one of these transforming factors. I'd say it sure is.
(If we forgive the trivial conflation of web and internet.)
For example, there are several ways my life is different from a pre-web world.
I'm British but I'm fortunate enough to live with my girlfriend in Brazil, while holding onto my job in the UK. I work remotely via the internet.
Without the net, when my girlfirend returned home, I would have been forced to chose between my relationship and staying with the company I helped found. As it is, I have both. And a weird kind of international existance, which does change my sense of space, and self in relation to it.
Sometimes I pretend to be in places where I'm not. When I use the phrase "you can send it to me" to my bank, I mean "you can send it somewhere far away from me, where someone will read it to me over the phone". The phrase "to me", which is about nothing but space and self, has changed its meaning.
Another previously impossible thing. Although I don't know Weinberger, I've added comments while the book was in progress. So maybe I even had an influence on it!
That's an experience which is pretty novel. Before, books had always come to me from publishers finished. I could have an opinion but not one that counted for anything. Increasingly I'm reading and buying books that I've discovered in draft form on the web, from writers who are accessable by email.
P2P networking has changed the way I discover, acquire and listen to music. Weblogs have changed my opinion about the media, its future, and its role in society. The open source model (whose success is an effect of the net) has changed the way I think about software development, and given me new faith in the efficacy of amateur projects run by communities of volunteers.
So the net challanges and changes my ideas all the time. It enables me to live in a way which would be impossible without it, among people who I would never have met. From my perspective it's a big deal. And I think the trend is more people are finding that too.
If you've only found adverts for big media and pr0n, you clearly aren't using it right.
The guy is a hack, pure and simple. He has no credibility nor integrity and neither does the pathetic site that he spews his garbage on.
In case Weinberger hasn't noticed -- and he hasn't, if the book is any indication -- the Web these days is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing. For better or worse, we remain the same people we were.
David knows that the Web is mostly about sex, free news, entertainment and retailing. But that is on the surface. Thinking people look below the surface. Jon Katz is a thinking person. Why is he not looking below the surface?
People are always changing, we never remain the same. Are you the same person you were as a teenager? Probably not. Change is usually gradual and therefore often not noticed in the short term. And change is often catalyzed by external stimuli. The Web is one of the most pervasive external stimuli in history. Does Jon really think that the Web is not stimulating change?
Yeah, you tell 'em, Dave!
... he's so old-media!
Seriously, this is awfully similar to what happens at certain right-wing political web sites. First somebody constructs a parody of liberal beliefs or concepts, then everybody else works up a full head of outrage and mocks those beliefs as if they were held by actual liberals.
BTW I know of few writers as modest and unpretentious as Dave. He examines eBay 'cause that is where the real action is, the real social impact and change.
P.S. I see Katz never took my advice to shorten his intermidable posts. Access to pre-publication books, too
.
.
As long as Katz writes, there will never be an end to CyberBS.
.
.