What The Internet Isn't

looseBits writes "Doc Searls and David Weinberger, co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, have put together a 10-part guide for how to stop mistaking the Internet for something it isn't. It contains some painfully obvious and often overlooked characteristics of the 'world of ends' we call the Internet."

Comments

Political, not descriptive

[JonSari]

This describes what they want the Internet to be, not what it is or what it will be. The characteristics of the Internet they describe will change based on who uses it, as it molds itself to suit the people to use it as a TOOL.

Re:Political, not descriptive

[AeroIllini]

You didn't pay much attention in your high school government class, did you? Or maybe you were too involved in the details of the government to see the bigger picture.

There is nothing more to the constitution than "I will give up some of my freedoms and in return you will give up some of yours." The whole document, from Preamble to Amendment XXVII, is simply working out how the citizens, state governments, and federal government will divy up the available freedoms. That's it. That's the whole document. The minutae, the paragraphs of information, are just working out *how* those rights get split up. Just like the minutae of IP (packet sizes, routing, port numbers, backbone wiring) is just working out *how* the packets get from A to B. The citizens say, "We will give up our right to make laws directly, and in return the two governments give up the right to hold office longer than we want them to." The state government says, "I will give up my right to have my own army, and in return, the federal government will give up its right to not defend me." And so on. Anything else that's involved (such as the laws themselves, or the governmental departments, or the government-sponsored programs) is just building upon that one foundation. Everything goes back to the constitution, and anything that doesn't agree with it gets rewritten or thrown out by the Supreme Court. Just like additional protocols, like email, news, HTTP, UDP, and LAN are built upon the IP foundation to create a working system.

Take a step back and look at it as a big picture. We agreed to form a bunch of states. We agreed to combine those states into a federation called The United States. We agreed on a single currency for all the states. We agreed on a method for choosing our leaders. What happens if members of the system don't agree to the above? In small cases, the members are taken out of the system (prison). In more extreme cases, the whole system collapses into civil war (for reference, see 1861-1865). What happens when a computer doesn't agree to the IP, and refuses a packet? That computer is taken out of the system. In more extreme cases, many computers refuse packets, and the system falls apart. The bit doesn't get from A to B, and the internet is down.

The whole point of the article is the big picture. It doesn't matter what we call the internet. It's just a big system, and the authors of the article are simply defining what that system is, since most of the commercial sector seems to have lost track.

Oh, and Internet2 is not a seperate internet. It's a consortium of people working out new systems for the internet. Read the FAQ.

Re:Political, not descriptive

[Moraelin]

The internet is well defined in what is called the "internet protocol". And this protocol is just an agreement on a way to communicate.

[...]

And usually when people refer to the internet, they mean the main one that most people connect to.

Well, see, that's the point. Usually when people -- including the article's authors -- talk about the Internet, they mean many things: the applications, the ISP, the content providers, the content itself, etc.

E.g., I'm going to take a wild guess that you too, at some point, said things like "I searched for it on the Internet" or "I found a tutorial on the Internet." Did you mean running a packet sniffer directly at IP protocol level? No. More likely you used an application (e.g., a browser) to connect to a content provider (e.g., Google.)

So if the article authors really meant "the Internet is just an aggreement" (the IP protocol), they could have ended the article right there and then. And spared us the other 9 points of whining against change.

But no, they go into things like IM applications talking to each other. There's nothing in the IP RFCs about IM, nor any special provisions for them. At that level, we're talking about applications (the IM clients) and content providers (the IM servers.)

Or they talk about censorship and copying copyrighted bits, which again happen on a completely different level than the IP protocol.

So no, they don't really mean that it's just a protocol, either. They mean the same lot of things that everyone else means.

The only difference is that they use funny semantics tricks to use one meaning of the word in one sentence, and in the next one extend the conclusion over a totally different meaning of it.

E.g., while the IP protocol is indeed about routing bits from X to Y, there is noting in it to say that two different content providers (the IM services) have to make their own data formats compatible to each other. Nor that they should share their login databases with each other.

The falacy goes like this:

- "The Internet is just the IP protocol"

- Therefore all computers connected to it must use the same protocol (IP)

- Now we stealthily change the meaning to something like "The Internet includes IM applications"

- Therefore all IM applications must use the same IM protocol

Or:

- "The Internet is just the IP protocol"

- The IP protocol routes around obstructions

- Now we stealthily change the meaning to something like "The Internet includes the content on it"

- Trying to stop piracy of copyrighted material is a form of obstructing that content

- Therefore the Internet should actively bypass and thwart any effort by the copyright owners to protect their IP

The whole article is _based_ on such lame logic tricks.

I respectfully disagree

[The Terrorists]

For me the internet has been:

a device to prevent four Palestinians from committing suicide by talking them dowjn realtime

a device to conduct career counseling of disadvantaged global youth in europe, africa and the middle east

a device to teach myself html, php and css

a device to advance my career through spontaneous, informal networking

in fact, i basically live my business life and more and more of my personal life on the internet. and this is not a bad thing, in fact it has maximized my power and leveraged globalization for myself and millions of other members of the brown horde.

Re:I respectfully disagree

[iabervon]

The internet is how you reach the people and sites at the other end of each of these interactions. What they're saying in this article is that the beauty of the internet is that it puts you in direct contact with four Palestinians, disadvantaged global youth, etc., and allows you to use the connection for whatever interaction you choose. You may feel like your interaction with the other ends is what the internet is, but that's just because the internet is so transparent that you think that the computers across the internet from you are the internet itself.

The internet is not a tool. It's how you hold a tool. That's why it can enable you to use millions of different tools.

Re:opinions versus facts...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an opinion. Considering more and more people are logging on, and I just read an article about older people turning to the Internet, consider the following... Just because to the author, the Internet, and using it is easy, does not mean it is not complicated for a new user

They don't mean the protocols or the software, or anything like what you're suggesting. They are simply saying that the internet is something that carries information from one point to another. That's pretty simple.

No people are stupid. Personally (this is my opinion) I believe the next generation is going to be hellishly smarter than the one I grew up (growing up) with (in). Where else can you learn so many things from without leaving your home. Encyclopedia? They're limited.

Well, if by "smart" you mean "tech savvy" I might agree with you. People are still as dumb as always when you get down to it. But, again, you're missing the point, because the internet has data available (much of it false or incomplete, I might add), that doesn't refute their claim that the internet is stupid. A library is stupid, yet it is full of information.

There is no true 'value' per se as one cannot grasp anything physical. But where else can you find mega bargains, mega information...

They mean, the internet is just a mechanism for transferring information. Trying to layer something else on top of it, like "pay per view" or "content protection", runs counter to the basic principle of transferring information.

Finding "mega bargains" is in fact a transfer of information, which is what the internet is all about. Charging you $1.50 for that information? No, that's not what the internet is about.

Here's a thought experiment for the MegaCorps: what if it is simply not possible to make profit on the internet?

Adding value can be a good thing...

[pdaoust007]

"Adding value to the Internet lowers its value

Sounds screwy, but it's true. If you optimize a network for one type of application, you de-optimize it for others. For example, if you let the network give priority to voice or video data on the grounds that they need to arrive faster, you are telling other applications that they will have to wait. And as soon as you do that, you have turned the Net from something simple for everybody into something complicated for just one purpose. It isn't the Internet anymore."

The way I see this, prioritizing packets also ensures that a minority of users can't abuse the network ressources the everybody else want to use.

Right in my home network I had to prioritze RTP packets (VoIP) so that other people in the house couldn't screw up my phone conversations when saturating my uplink or downlink. The same can be true on a national backbone, especially in failure conditions where you will get links that saturate.

We can't stop the Internet from evolving either, it has probably turned out to be very different than what it's creators had envisioned...

Re:Old news...

[djupedal]

This and things like the today's 'worst security flaw ever' from MS, are all topics bubbling up prior to a security conference next week in SF, where pundits are surely to roast BG, one of the speakers, to a char.

The internet isn't better off because of slackard MS. They were late to the party (just like today's patch took 200 days), and they use it for their gain, with lack of concern, as usual, for the 'customer'.

Remember, a 'headline' here is what you find yourself in when you have to take a leak at a basketball game. Just because a topic is raised, doesn't mean squat that it has value to anyone.

Re:opinions versus facts...

[cjhuitt]

I think you're confusing the point that the authors are trying to make.

Their point seems to be that the Internet, so far as it exists, is a shared idea of how to transport things from point A to point B. And it has a Protocol that you may have heard of somewhere. Remember this - they're talking about things on a IP level.

Now then:

Opinion: 1. The Internet isn't complicated
That's an opinion. Considering more and more people are logging on, and I just read an article about older people turning to the Internet, consider the following... Just because to the author, the Internet, and using it is easy, does not mean it is not complicated for a new user.

The idea behind the internet isn't complicated, which is what they are trying to say. See, the idea is that you hook end points together. Gee, doesn't sound too complicated to me. I thought they wrote about this well, if a bit simplisticly from a technical perspective.

Opinion 3. The Internet is stupid.
No people are stupid. Personally (this is my opinion) I believe the next generation is going to be hellishly smarter than the one I grew up (growing up) with (in). Where else can you learn so many things from without leaving your home. Encyclopedia? They're limited

The seem to mean that the internet (IP) is stupid because it doesn't know about what is going on above it. That's just the point that leads to the others. It doesn't know what it is transporting. It just moves it from point A to point B. So while the internet is enabling many smart people (this generation and next), it in itself doesn't know more than "this thingy goes from here to there".

Opinion: 4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
There is no true 'value' per se as one cannot grasp anything physical. But where else can you find mega bargains, mega information...

Here's where things get kind of complicated, I'll admit. The values talked about are two different kinds of values. I won't go through this, but advise people to RTFA. In summary, this point says that anything that makes the IP less stupid (so that it knows more about what it is transferring) results in some sort of restriction or impairment to transporting other things, which lowers the overall value.

So, The Real Nutshell: The internet (protocol) doesn't know what it is transporting, but just transports it. This is a good thing, but many people fail to grasp that this is the reality of the situation, which leads to many headaches. Especially for those of us who do grasp the idea, and happen to like it.

Wrong about advertising

[flikx]

He's completely wrong about advertising on the internet. Once advertisers treat it as a medium similar to television, that is exactly what it will become. The process has already started, and a majority of sites have flagrant advertising. The recent idea of television commercials displayed fullscreen between pages is yet another example.

Junkbuster is a joke, like spam filters, most advertisements easily slip by. Want to subscribe to a site? How about a couple dozen. The small $5 - $15 fees can add up to well over $800 per month for an average internet user.

I didn't bother to read the rest of the article, but this guy is clearly living in a fantasy world. A world with cave trolls, elves, magic goblins, and internet users with a clue.

The only alternative at this point is to start a new internet, completely seperate from the existing network. Maybe the spammers and advertisers could be kept at bay for another decade or so.

Re:Wrong about advertising

[DaveAtFraud]

How about advertisers realize that the internet isn't the same as television and radio and actually work at creating compelling content such that the ads aren't annoying?

Watching television and listening to radio are passive activities. An ad has to be sufficiently "disturbing" that you notice it but not so annoying that you change channels, hit mute, etc. That is the extent of the interaction. The internet is different. Think more along the lines of the ads that get run during the Superbowl. The advertisers go all out because they know they have a huge audience and they know there are other things to do besides watch their ad (biology break to let out last beer; get next beer). The interaction still isn't there but the companies who advertise realize that they need to do something different to keep your attention.

The internet falls in between but is closer to the "Superbowl" model. If the ads are too obnoxious (e.g., pop-ups), people find a way to defeat them. If they are too bland (e.g., simple banner ads), people ignore them. Internet advertising will start to pay when the advertisers realize that they need to create ads that people will at least pay attention to and, preferably, will actually enjoy. This stands in marked contrast to the current generation of internet advertisements that simply are new ways to shove the ad in front of the content you were actually looking for.

Before you say it will never happen, I will point out that every once in a while an ad firm actually manages to create a traditional media ad that people actually enjoy. As an example, there was a mini-soap opera coffee ad series a few years back that people actually enjoyed because they wanted to see how the plot turned out. The difference is that people actually wanted to see the ad to see what was going to happen next.

Thus, the main thing that has to change is the advertiser's mind set of forcing people to hear their message since the internet will always come with a technological mute button. I'd guess you'll initially see some fumbling efforts as advertisers go with traditional techniques like product placement in exchange for what are currently pay services. The main thing advertisers will need to learn is that the internet isn't a tradition media (print or broadcast) and creating successful advertising will take a new way of conveying the message.

Where is the Internet?

[DonGar]

I worked for the computing center when I was in college. When the school was first being connected to the internet, and many people were having their desktops networked for the first time, one of the really common questions from non-technical types was "Where is the Internet?"

A careful summary of world wide networking (this was before web browsers) would be met with a blank stare and "Yes, but where is it?"

We finally decided to tell them it was at a secret location in a closet in Idaho. This seemed to make people feel better.

I never really understood why the most confusing thing was.... "Where is it?"

These people had already learned how to use their email programs and 3270 emulator (virtual mainframe terminal) with no problem.

Thinking back on this.... it makes more sense that AOL had so much success. If AOL was installed you could tell the user that the internet in that little friendly icon right there on the desktop.

Re:Where is the Internet?

[Saeger]

"Where is the Internet?"

Instead of being a condescending ass, why don't you just use the simple telephone system analogy? Once you've done that almost everyone will understand that the net isn't a thing in a central location, but a global network that computers plug into like their telephones plug into the telephone system. If an idiot follows up by asking, "but... where is the phone system?", THEN you can tell them it's in Idaho. :)

--

Content is not free.

[dnahelix]

Perhaps companies that think they can force us to listen to their messages -- their banners, their interruptive graphic crawls over the pages we're trying to read -- will realize that our ability to flit from site to site is built into the Web's architecture. They might as well just put up banners that say "Hi! We don't understand the Internet. Oh, and, by the way, we hate you."

I'm no fan of popups or banner-ads, but if that pays for content
that I otherwise would not be seeing, then so be it. I think
commercials have made for a rather successful business model
for television, which is as pervasive as ever, even after more
than 50 years.

I also think the slew of dot-bombs from the past few years
proves that you can't give away something for free forever.
I would much rather put up with ads than have to open an
account with every website that provides quality content.
(subjective, I know)

I use the internet very very frequently to find information that
I need. Outside of my monthly charge for internet access, this
information is all free. It's free to me for one reason alone:
Internet Advertising.

The only thing people seem to be giving away for free on the
internet is their opinions, which I'm up to my neck in!

Open Spectrum?

[mosb1000]

From the article:

The federal agency responsible for allocating spectrum might notice that the value of open spectrum is the same as the true value of the Internet.

I hope to god he isn't refering to the electro-magnetic spectrum.

"Yeah, we used to brodcast on 109.5 FM, but then viacom put in a transmitter with twice the power of our station."

Re:Ironic?

[pla]

I find it ironic that the "Choose a style" menu at the top-right doesn't work in Safari, but works fine in Mac IE, despite the fact that: "We don't have to worry that its basic functions are only going to work with Microsoft's, Apple's or AOL's "platform""

Go to a command prompt.

Type "ping 66.35.250.151" (slashdot, as of an nslookup just a few seconds ago). Do you get a response?

Congratulations, the internet works for you, regardless of platform.


The internet does not give a damn if your favorite web-browser style works or not. It doesn't care if you use a broken MS Samba implementation. It doesn't care if AIM works with MSIM. It doesn't care if you can't make a passive connection to an FTP site through your firewall (although that does actually get a lot closer to the nature of the internet than the previous examples).

It doesn't care if you live in China and research Falun Gong, whatever the hell that means (they certainly make a big fuss about it, though). It doesn't care if you look at kiddie porn. It doesn't care if you troll slashdot (no, I don't mean this as a troll, just giving an example).

The Internet routes packets from point A to point B. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not what it used to be

[ScottCanto]

I'm an 18-year old kid and 13-year computer nerd. While I have had access to the internet for only 8 of those years, I slowly become increasingly disillusioned with my inital view of the internet now.

Granted I was young, but when I first dialed with my 14.4, I was enamored by the sensible and meaningful content that dominated the internet. It was intelligent. As the internet has trickled down to the masses, we are now plagued by commercialism, ignorance and stupid people, spam, congestion, and far too much subscription-based content. The internet, IMHO, is now another outlet for the media and people who take advantage of the anonymity. Granted there are still hundreds of sites such as this and others that still offer that of value, but they are easily overwhelmed by the other garbage that's out there now. I used to come home from school every day and dial up. Now, with a few exceptions, I sit down and use the internet only when I have to, because it's just not worth it.

Re:Not what it used to be

[tfoss]

Oh come on, one of advantages of the net is that you are able to pick and choose where to go and what to do. It is perhaps the most interactive medium available, one in which you *can* ignore the crap if you want. I seriously doubt very much of the good content that you pine for is unavailable. The dilution effect certainly has had an effect, but that does not mean you can't still use the good stuff out there.

You are far too young for the 'things used to be so much better when i was young' shtick. Yes the net is used for commercial endeavors, and for anonymous child porn trading, but it is also the greatest information resource in the history of the world. With google and little bit of creative searching, you can get by with a minimum of chaff in your wheat.

-Ted

Re:Not what it used to be

[segmond]

The internet is more informative than it was in say 93,94,95, it is more informative than it has ever been. The problem is that the junk/noise has grown even much more faster than the useful data, the trick then becomes to learn how to find useful data. A lot of my friends have problems finding things with search engines, yet one or two tries and I will usually find what they want by carefully construction my queries. When I started using the net in 93-94. Text filez were the information then, to find a say 10 page text file on a technical subject was a God send, today, I can find complete books, we have come a long way.

Re:opinions versus facts...

[dasmegabyte]

Here's a thought experiment for the MegaCorps: what if it is simply not possible to make profit on the internet?

Oh come on now. The internet is making money for a lot of people, just not as an advertising vehicle. For one thing, people are using the internet to find information about products and services. Feeding the right information to them is very worthwhile and will be as important in the future as standard marketting. Already music labels (large and small) are employing digital street teams to seed positive feedback about their movies over the net. And it's not always as obnoxious and obvious as you might think...I was on the street team for the last Queens of the Stone Age album and think I drummed up quite a bit of support for the record on forums and such I was already a part of.

Then there's the other business uses of the internet...we use it to telesupport our software. Install PCAnywhere along with the software, give people a five minute introduction on how to start the host when we need them to, and viola! We no longer have to drive to client sites to perform support, and we can have multiple levels of support working simultaneously at the office. Then there's the company groupware server, the Citrix server which allows our remote staff to connect from home, and the massive online knowledge bases we can use to help troubleshoot problems.

Oh, and our provider makes PLENTY of money off of us using the internet for these purposes. So do the companies that made the software we use. In fact, there is so much money being made off these relatively mundane uses of the internet that I bet the "content" side can be made basically free...so long as nobody expects to be paid to generate it.

Even then, there are plenty of folks who will generate content for "free," or through pledges. Shit, I'm one of them. Shit, I've even been known to give away bandwidth to worthy causes.

Re:for sale...

[starm_]

I think your teacher wasn't aiming on being literal when she said that. English contains ton's of utterances that don't mean exactly what they mean litterally. Like when you ask: "Can you pass me the salt?" you are not actually asking if the person is able to pass you the salt, you are expressing your will the the person will pass it to you. This is a field called pragmatics. You get angry way too easely

Re:Well, for starters...

[Ralph Wiggam]

Be realistic. From a dollars standpoint, the internet is still mostly pornography.

-B

Re:for sale...

[The Only Druid]

Of course, to be properly anal, one should mention that its not appropriate at all to ask someone if they can do something. The proper means of request is "Would you " or "Please ", i.e. "Would you pass the salt" or "Please pass the salt". Thats the source of the old joke that gets passed around elementary schools:

Student: "Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?" Teacher: "I certainly hope so! You may go to the bathroom, and find out!"

Quite the asshole of a teacher, to be sure, but spot-on nonetheless.

Incidentally, this isn't a 'feild', nor would pragmatics accurately describe it. Its poor grammar. Being pragmatic in your attempts to comprehend the bad grammar of other speakers of your language would lead you to figure out the probable meaning, but its not a 'field'.

Of course, you shouldn't be angry at anyone for a mistake like this. Then again, you shouldn't be pleased that they speak improperly, either.

Re: But what *IS* the internet?

[C Joe V]

-1 redundant: an equivalence class implies an equivalence relation which implies reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity.

-1 backwards: Grandparent post makes perfect sense. You can't talk about "the largest equivalence class in R" unless you know the relation R is an equivalence relation. Taking the reflexive transitive symmetric closure turns a relation that may or may not be an equivalence into one that is.

Furthermore, "can be reached by an IP packet from" is not transitive, since not all nodes necessarily forward packets. Symmetry is questionable as well. Thus it was necessary to turn that relation into an equivalence before talking about equivalence classes.

Geez.

CJV

Not toys, kibble

[Hjalmar]

Some mistakes we learn from. For example: Thinking that selling toys for pets on the Web is a great way to get rich. We're not going to do that again.

This is clearly a reference to Pets.com, and he got it wrong. Their mistake wasn't that they were trying to sell high margin, high markup, cheap to ship toys on the Internet. Their problem was that they were trying to sell low margin, low markup, expensive to ship dog food. It's easy to make money selling cheap to ship high margin items on the Internet - look at Amazon, or (more relavently) PETsMART.com.