Jaron Lanier Rants Against the World of Web 2.0

hao3 writes "In his new book, You Are Not A Gadget, former Wired writer Jaron Lanier bemoans what the internet has become. 'It's early in the twenty-first century, and that means that these words will mostly be read by nonpersons,' it begins. The words will be 'minced into anatomized search engine keywords,' then 'copied millions of times by some algorithm somewhere designed to send an advertisement,' and then, in a final insult, 'scanned, rehashed, and misrepresented by crowds of quick and sloppy readers.' Lanier's conclusion: 'Real human eyes will read these words in only a tiny minority of the cases.' He goes on to criticise Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, open-source software and what he calls the 'hive mind.'"

Comments

But of course

[nicc777]

The dude works for Microsoft. So of course he has been brain washed by now to belief everything open is evil!

You can be successful

[Stregano]

That dude is just mad because his idea flopped and more simple ideas, like social networking, worked.

Hey, don't get mad at me that nobody wanted your $2000 vr goggles and would rather just sign in to facebook.

Besides, whether you like the artist or not, Asher Roth is a rapper that had his starts on facebook and now is an incredibly successful rapper (last I heard he had a couple music videos on MTV and was doing just fine).

Places like facebook are a breeding ground for people to get noticed, as with the Asher Roth example.

Not everybody can be famous and no, I am still not buying your stupid, expensive vr goggles.

Re:Worse than DRM

[wytcld]

I should pay my plumber every time I flush

Funny thing. I have municipal water and sewer. They built all the plumbing from my house to the reservoir and treatment plant. I pay them every month based on metered gallons used.

Now why am I doing this? I can collect rainwater for free! I have a yard where I can dig a hole and shit! I must be a moron to be paying these guys who put the plumbing in every month.