Web Profits in the Gutter

The New York Times has an article about the web's one true growth industry: spam, fraud and porn. Societal meltdown or flourishing ecosystem? The talking heads debate.

Comments

Changing Times

[T-Kir]

I remember when the first talk of web-based shops were on the cards. They were saying it was the 'High Street' stores that would lose profits and business... and some chose to do the 'ostrich effect', while others went for the full madness effect (i.e. anyone remember EggHead stores - DUH!).

But it is those stores that have an existing infrastructure who then expand into using the web to generate extra revenue are the ones who will thrive. Just because web shopping came along doesn't mean people will all of a sudden stop going to the mall.

A lot of the porn industry has thrived because of the anonimity, as well as the breaking down of borders... hence laws governing porn.

"We will lose the Internet if we don't save it." and "civil society" has broken down online... probably not, it's just that people know that they can currently get away with doing stuff, and the net still being in its relavtive infancy, people know that they'll be able to do whatever they want until push comes to shove and the governments themselves catch up with technology.

Why is anyone surprised?

[doomdog]

Why is anyone surprised by this? After all, practically none of the dot coms had a viable business model -- it was all "get customers now and make it up later (on volume!). The only thing that made it possible in the first place was the billions upon billions of dollars that venture captial threw into the pot...

As the article mentioned, the things that are working well on the web are the same things that work well (from a financial standpoint) in real life: selling pr0n and ripping people off. Only with the web, you can reach a MUCH wider audience (such as under-age boys [sub-18] with the pr0n -- all without fear of prosecution). After all, no one in their right mind would stand outside a middle school trying to sell copies of porno magazines -- he'd be arrested (and most likely hung) in quick fashion.

But with the web (and spam), these sleazeballs are allowed to advertise to a group that was previously off-limits. The rest is basic economics: increase the size of your target audience, increase your sales...

The same thing goes for ripping people off: you're able to reach a wider audience. Slap together a slick web page, and you give yourself an air of legitimacy -- all the better to draw in the stupid and gullible.

The internet is not making people more stupid, and isn't contributing to the demise of society... It is merely bringing the existing stupidity and lack of culture to the forefront of society, instead of letting it hide in dark corners... It is making depravity more visible, that's all.

Leave it to the New York Times ...

[radicalsubversiv]

... to write an articulate article, with lots of sweeping claims from important-sounding people, which doesn't really offer much to substantiate its claims.

In some ways, I wish the "cyberspace" notion had never been introduced, because it furthers bad analogies like these, comparing the net to a geographical neighborhood, which has apparently become a red-light district.

The reality, of course, is that the internet is a communication medium, not a neighborhood, and the apparently-proliferating number of sleazy businesses making use of it proves very little. Sure, you can make money selling fake penis-enlargement pills at a $57 markup, so long as you can find suckers (although I do admit being a bit surprised that there are so many of them).

Brewster Kahle is right on point, even if his thoughts are buried in the article:

Brewster Kahle, who has created a large Internet archive he calls the Wayback Machine, which contains several times the amount of information in the Library of Congress, said that the number of questionable sites is beside the point so long as search engines do their job.

"We don't worry about how many pages that I don't care about are in the Internet archive," he said. "What you do care about is, `Does it have the pages that I want?' "

Now if only the NY Times would stop running articles about the supposed decline of electronic "civil society," and start commentataing on the actual decline of actual civil society. Or, heaven forbid, the sleazy nature of elected officials and their corporate benefactors.

Re:Nothing changes...

[rjkimble]

According to this and this, Gutenberg's second book was the Psalter, a collection of the Psalms of the Old Testament, printed by themselves. So I think you're correct to question the assertion that Gutenberg's second book was a collection of erotica. Besides, it just doesn't make sense when you consider the time and place.

We can all learn something from porn

[forkboy]

Actually, the porn thing is the one that baffles me. We are talking about the same internet where people trade music all the time for free, but for some reason they don't get that concept with porn? (But then again, I have never even desired to be a member of a porn site, so maybe I am missing something about the motivations involved)

I can answer that one....it's because the pr0n-lords are smart enough to come up with a business model that adapts to the nature of the internet and the needs of the customers.

They charge a reasonable rate for access to their (and often times several partnering) websites...usually $10-$20 for a month's worth of unlimited downloading of pics, movies, etc. Then they keep rolling out new material to keep people coming back. They have different websites to cater to peoples' different tastes, be it asians, blacks, gay, fat chicks, or what have you.

If the RIAA, or better yet the individual artists, would open their eyes and follow a similar model, I think everyone would be a lot better off for it. Yeah there are a lot of charlatans out there, but many of the people running the pr0n companies are smart, smart businessmen. (and women)