Slashdot Mirror
Death of Internet Predicted: Film at 11
Remik writes "The Register has a piece analyzing several threads of Lawrence Lessig's blog, and concluding that the Internet as we know it is dying. For anyone who reads the majority of YRO posts, Lessig's blog is one of the most important sites on the net." Another submitter summed it up well: 'Lessig is predicting that the days of the Commons of the Internet are over, and that as a result of FCC deregulation, the concentration of digital rights in the hands of just a few large media companies will kill the internet for good. Even former FOX and Vivendi executive Barry Diller has criticised the move.' We joke, but there are large elements of truth to Lessig's dour predictions.
Maybe the internet experience isn't living up for BabyBoomers, but find me a GenXer or GenYer who doesn't use the net. Hmmm...for the price of an ISP (POTS, wireless, or cable/DSL), you can talk to your friends through instant messaging for free (so to speak); you can download purchased or *creatively acquired* software, music, and motion pictures; and you always have the most up-to-date news vs. from television. Spam? You just delete it. At least you don't have to physically shred it like junk mail because you don't want credit card account numbers getting into the hands of prisoners sorting the trash before it arrives at the landfill. So how is this internet do-hicky dying? And sitting in front of a noisy computer hasn't proven to cause you brain cancer, unlike a cell phone... I'd rather have my computer and broadband access than television, wired or wireless phone access, and cable television...or radio...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I think what he's painting is a "worst case" scenario. Reality will be different, and I cannot predict what it will be like, but it will not be as bad as he thinks. Most really innovative work still has to be done. Did anybody here predict the social influence Google would have? I think not.
And to illustrate this with a recent development: iTunes. Conventional wisdom is that Apple seriously fucked up, the RIAA is going to sue Apple's pants off, and Apple's new iTunes Music Store will be shut down by the some seriously pissed off record companies.
Kottke would like to believe an alternative theory. Apple had to know what they were doing with iTunes. Their engineers aren't stupid. They left the whole thing wide open and had to know how trivial it would be for developers to figure out the protocol and write apps to download the music directly.
Things will be not develop in the way we are thinking now. Nevertheless, Lessig will remain a good read for quite a while!
-John
The "Web" died the moment companies started suing private individuals because those people got to the proper domain names first. Those corporations had zero foresight and should have had to do without. But nooooo, they sick'ed lawyers on everyone and everything until they got what they wanted, and then realising that they had this kind of power, started to "lobby" Congress into changing law to suit their needs.
Consider the DMCA, which seems to serve no other purpose than to harass "the little guy", when a big corporation would like to roll over on him.
Mind you, corporations would do it anyhow, but now they've made it legal, and are using your taxes to harass him -- they no longer need to spend their own money.
Consider that half the people I know are now afraid to put up websites for fear that if they link to somone or say the wrong thing online, they will get sued.
Thanks to spam, email has become near-useless, nobody uses usenet, and the web is controlled by the big boys.
The internet died a while ago.
You see that every time an AOL ad comes on TV.
Only the media conglomerates have control. We're just hanging on to the fringes, like sailors clinging to the wooden remains of a destroyed ship. But the ship has indeed sunk, and we're just treading water until we too, sink below the waves of internet-trash.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's easy to say "there's this problem and that problem and this other problem here, man the whole thing's just totally fucked!", reality is never that oversimplified.
Email is being destroyed by SPAM: So.. people are just turning off their computers? No! There's forums, there's instant messaging, and there's chat. If that's not enough reason to calm down, then consider that SPAM will force email to evolve to be more secure. Heck, just the other day I had to fill out a challenge in order to get a message to somebody. Sorry, I don't see this as reason for people to leave the net.
Google's getting flooded with crap: And Google's not going to work to fix that?
Tasteless web design and pop-ups make people leave: Cable TV has 70 channels and people have trouble finding stuff to watch. Yet, the few things they do like make it all worth it. Why is the net different?
The Internet means sitting at noisy and unreliable machines that would land any self-respecting consumer manufacturer with a class action suit: Uh okay. First off, computers aren't that unreliable. As a matter of fact, I think most people would agree they've improved considerably since 95. Remember the days when you'd get randomly disconnected from the net and you'd have to dial up again? Thanks to broadband, that's no biggie. Remember the Windows 95/98 days where you had to reboot at least once/twice a day to be productive? 2000, XP, and Linux have killed that problem. The standards on the internet have improved, so there's not so much in terms of "Oh you have to have this browser, or that plugin, etc". Fewer hiccups. It's even becoming hard to find broken links on the web. They're there, but in the olden days you used to cross your fingers and pray this link works.
So yeah, some annoyances about the net have been brought to light. However, predicting the death of the internet is ridiculous. Humans have a way of overweighing negatives and underweighing positives. "Hmm this new job pays more money, but I like the people at my current job and I'd probably die from missing them so much!" With all the problems he's listed, he's skipped over a few things:
- People have friends/communities on line.
- The internet has useful information and files available. Great for pursuing hobbies.
- There's still plenty to explore.
- The world is full of news (like the war in Iraq) that people want to be up to date on.
None of the problems he's listed will nullify any of the above points which are critically important to a LOT of people.
"Derp de derp."