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Life on The Net in 2004
NewtonsLaw writes "In recent years the Net has changed very quickly from a great place for geeks and nerds into a highly commercialized marketplace in which everyone is making a grab for your wallet. If it's not wave after wave of spam in your mailbox, it's excessively intrusive ad banners and popups, or demands by websites that you pay a subscription for access.
The DMCA and other pending legislation could soon mean that companies such as Microsoft and the recording labels will cement their total ownership of your online rights -- leaving you with nothing but a hefty bill to pay whenever you want to use their software or services.
Today's Aardvark Daily carries an interesting editorial that speculates on just what life could be like in the very near future. Sobering -- but perhaps not too far from reality?"
I love how capitalists and authoritarians alike fall back on the notion that inequality and suffering are "facts of life" and so capitalism and authority is just - and yet they fail to go by that same reasoning when it comes to murder, theft, and overall crime. You can't have it both ways. Either the world revolves around pain and brutality or it doesn't. Whether or not that brutality puts money into your goddamn fucking greedy ass pockets is completely irrelevant.
Why don't you put aside your greed for one moment and think about the possibility, just the possibility, that the world doesn't have to be so fucked up.
We wave the flag of freedom as we conquer and invade.
Everything is cyclical. The 2004 article may in fact happen. If life on the net somehow gets that bad, there will be an equal and opposite force that limits the damage.
Without a doubt, the legal aspects of this will be every bit as bad as the article suggests. However, there is a big difference between having laws and enforcing them. In the 2004 scenario, practically everyone who owns a computer will be violating somebody's license or patent. The legal system may very well drown in it's own filth.
Considering how Napster was launched by a few low-budget geeks, imagine what might happen with serious opposition. I have often heard about the open source movement being the "Viet Cong" of the software world. Using laws to control a guerilla force is not going to be effective. If gun control doesn't stop criminals from using guns, I don't see how SSSCA is going to fare any better with computers. Surely, some people will be intimidated, but the Internet will simply become more encrypted and private. Historically, the Russians have been among the world leaders in dealing with repressive regimes. They are especially well suited for the Microsoft-Disney-Hollings world. Dimitry Sklyarov may very well have the last laugh after all.
The 2004 article presumes that the bad guys have achieved a total victory. The same mentality would have predicted a British victory in the American revolution, and a US victory in the Vietnam war. Goliath doesn't always win.
On the surface, it looks like Microsoft, RIAA, and Disney are a dominant force because they have money. We can assume that money will buy custom-crafted legislation (DMCA, SSSCA, and whatever Hollings is told to produce). But the advantage ends there. If you think about the brainpower aspect of this battle, a finite number of software professionals will have to outsmart an almost limitless number of guerilla hackers -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Every time the hackers get lucky, the "axis of evil" loses millions of dollars. The reason why Micrsoft is being hacked and embarrassed on a daily basis is not because they are dumb, it's because they are outnumbered.
We can't afford to be complacent, but this battle is by no means over.
Anything a geek can create, a politician can legislate against.
A political problem doesn't cry out for a technological solution... but we're not politicians. We're geeks.
-Eldurbarn
I can't stand most of the crap out there, so I don't buy it. I don't buy CDs or DVDs anymore, I don't go out to movies or rent them, I don't buy pay-per-view or subscribe to premium cable channels, etc. (and I don't download any of this stuff either). Instead of producing something I would want to buy, the companies that produce this junk complain about piracy, as if I would even take their crap for free. Unfortunately, they have the money and power to make it more difficult to avoid their products (and avoid paying for them).
Despite all of this, I'm not too worried about the future described in the article. It's not that I don't see it as being likely, I just don't see it being impossible to avoid. If I don't pay today's prices for music, I won't pay high subscription fees. If web sites start charging more than they're worth, I'll go elsewhere or just go without. I base my purchasing decisions on quality, and that won't change with electronic services.
Of course, I have one secret weapon to fall back on if I have to abandon all else. Over the past few years, I have accumulated hundreds of books, at an average price of about 5 cents each. When all else fails, I'll just sit down and read (well, read more actually). And yes, Fahrenheit 451 is in there...
Ah, yes! Before everyone else showed up, the Net was this fantastic Geek Heaven, where all things were possible. You could download naughty pictures from the Delft University sever. You could engage in endlessly stimulating MUDs with fellow dungeon-crawling geeks. You could send e-mail! Hell, you could even use Gopher to snag files. It was Heaven on Earth!
Snap out of it! There was no Slashdot (founded in 1997, decidedly after the invasion of "other people"). There was no Gnutella. No Everquest. No online newspapers. No online banking. No ordering that hard-to find computer game or book or whatever in the dead of night when you live miles from the nearest store that carries what you're looking for.
There was less of a connection between "geeks" and "normal people", meaning that people who liked to tinker with computers were shunned far more than they are today.
It wasn't Heaven, just as this predicted 2004 won't be Hell.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ