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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.
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!
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.
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
- 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.
can't still change our lives
It has already transformed our lives in fundamental ways we don't even think about. They just seem "normal" now.
Example: an irate customer enters your workplace and makes a scene. Afterward, you Google his name and discover a history of outbursts (being ejected from city council meetings), some arrests, some allegations of knife wielding, and some fisticuffs in professional disagreements. So you give a print-out of some web pages to your boss and he hires a security guard and implements other security procedures.
You get a quick thank you for your five minutes of research, then go back to work. You think nothing of what you just did, even though it would have been impossible - unthinkable - just a few years ago. Well, that was my reaction anyway.
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.