Why the Web Mustn't Become the New TV

An anonymous reader writes "This article argues that Rupert Murdoch's bid to own complete control of BSkyB is only part of an ongoing process to make the internet a totally 'linear' experience. The increase in the use of paginated content and the proliferation of video over transcribed interviews are, the author argues, part of a tidal shift from a browsable internet experience to a linear one that will move the user's experience of media from genuine choice to a series of locked-down 'information rides,' in order to re-secure advertising exposure. The author also writes, 'Current worries among publishing houses that magazines and newspapers will succumb to the digital written word on the internet are perhaps analogous to Victorian fears about mechanical horses taking over from real horses in the drawing of carriages. The point is being missed, the wrong fear being indulged.'"

Comments

lol

[scarface71795]

U MAD? I don't see how this will ever happen

Re:lol

[poetmatt]

bingo. this will never happen, nobody wants TV to be equal to internet, and the demand is nonexistent. It's not too different than 3d tv, which has also been underwhelming.

Re:lol

[NoMaster]

No, you're missing the point. They don't want TV to be equal to the internet; they want the internet to be the equivalent of TV . Demand - at least, what the existing inhabitants demand - also has very little to do with it; they're experts at steering the wants and demands of the incoming population by supply-side manipulation. They've also got the temperament to wait until the tide turns their way, the experience to know that it almost inevitably will, and the deep pockets to stumble around making expensive mistakes until it does.

What, you think /. or other similar crowsourced-ish news/blog sites are the future? No, if you want a glimpse at the future, it's more Fox and Gawker Media than anything else.

Re:lol

[poetmatt]

there is no difference in expression between tv being == internet or vice versa, if the two are attempting to be brought together.

It still won't happen.People screamed how webtv was awesome, and yet it sucked, and we all know it. It was all advertiser/supplier hype.

This is no different. Netflix on your TV? Facebook on your TV?

Re:lol

[bsDaemon]

this isn't a case of equality testing, it is a case of assignment. The Internet's current value gets clobbered to take on the value of TV. At least it'll be "on demand" :-/. Web 3.0 is going to suck even harder than web 2.0, but I say that as the sterotypical guy who doesn't have a TV. Well, my roommate and I have one, but refuse to pay for cable and don't watch broadcast, so its just there for watching DVDs.

Re:lol

[Surt]

The point is about which direction things are heading. Murdoch would like to make the internet be like tv, and has many of the resources required to force this upon the rest of us. He does NOT want to make TV like the internet.

Re:lol

[gronofer]

You are suggesting that sites like Slashdot will disappear because its readers will prefer to watch streaming video from big media conglomerates? I can't see why this would happen. The Internet has been competing with TV since it became widely available in people's homes. Using the Internet to deliver the TV streams won't change anything.

Re:lol

[myrmidon666]

I agree with this 100%. I watch many streaming television shows and personally, I only watch what I want to watch. If anything, the open format of the internet will slowly destroy traditional cable/satellite providers. The internet is the most open and free (as in ideas) "television" I have ever experienced. Even if CNN, Fox, or other such companies place their broadcasts all over the internet, there will always be other sources to consult on the internet. Granted, the production value may not be the same but, truth is truth.

Re:lol

[Hylandr]

The sad truth of affairs are that people like us are vastly out numbered by those whose sole purpose on this earth is to breed.

It's the demographic that finds participating in the Nealson (sp) rating system interesting, that will determine where the technology goes. If humanity went with debate that made sense we might have been zipping about the galaxy in star ships centuries ago.

If it's approved by this body of people, then it's whats pushed. Bear, Football, shows that suck, new linear Internet. - Still pissed the canceled "Carnivale".

-Dan.

Re:lol

[Keen Anthony]

Internet television shows and TV-to-Internet shopping conduits are certainly the future, but I have difficulty believing that even the great Sith Lord himself, Murdoch can succeed in locking down the Internet, much less the Web. First of all, there are many barriers that prevent me from getting my own programming on television. On the Internet, the only barrier is bandwidth and space, which means, the only barrier is a relatively paltry operating cost. Murdoch hasn't the power to lock down advertisers. One may argue that I can't advertise my Internet TV show because Murdoch will have control over the print and the television media, but that's irrelevant. The most popular websites today are big despite lack of advertising in traditional media forms. In fact, Murdoch's foray in MySpace has sorta evidenced the opposite. Basically, no matter how much Murdoch only wants me to watch News Corp owned Internet TV or shop via News Corp owned shopping conduits, an alternative is always easily created.

Sure, Lonelygirl14 the Fox Internet TV series will be a big commercial hit, but it won't cause lesser known web shoes like The Guild to go away, and it won't prevent me from shopping at Amazon instead of whatever e-tailer News Corp is allied with. And information, as we've seen in Iraq, China, North Korea, and Persia; is impossible to control online. The Web can't become the new TV, though I can see Facebook or MySpace becoming the new Internet TV network; and that's a different story altogether. And seriously, I read Gawker on occasion along with Gawker affiliated news sites, but so what? Gawker can't stop me from getting my news elsewhere.

Re:lol

[Alcoholist]

I don't think they can change it now. Increasing numbers of people like me are watching 'TV' using the Internet.

As to what financial model, I think the CBC here in Canada is on the right track. Pretty well every show they make you can watch it online. They scatter little ads through it and sometimes there are banners on the right, but whatever. It's just like TV, only I have the freedom to look at past shows whenever I want and they have the freedom to put ads from their current sponsors in those shows. As a bonus, they are much more likely know how many people are watching because it is easy to count the number of streams.

As the number of viewers increases, they'll be able to charge more for the ads. Really it's a win-win situation.

Re:lol

[RsG]

Murdoch would like to make the internet be like tv, and has many of the resources required to force this upon the rest of us.

While I don't doubt he wants that, I do doubt he can achieve it.

"Force this upon the rest of us"? How exactly? He could buy out ISPs and force policy change, I suppose. And then run them into the ground with his "vision". At a basic level, he's limited not by resources but by return on investment. Murdoch wants to make money, and will abandon any plan that proves itself sufficiently unprofitable. Business men are tiresomely predictable where their wallets are concerned.

You seem to be arguing either that he could turn a profit on making the internet closed and limited, or that he wouldn't care if he didn't make a profit, if it advanced some nefarious plan. Trouble is, I think the former extremely unlikely, and the latter, well, his nefarious plan would need to pay off in a huge way to justify the loss. He's greedy, not stupid. Evil, maybe, but the self-interested kind of evil, not the Saturday morning cartoon kind.

Re:lol

[poetmatt]

murdoch has tons of resources but it doesn't mean he can make something useful out of them or even inspire change.

how's myspace doing? how's news corp doing?

the man is (lately, but not always) a colossal failure with an excess of resources.

Re:lol

[Surt]

Yes, the idea would be to secure advertising dollars by closing the internet. In the short run he has competitors on the internet that he needs to get rid of to make that future happen.

Re:lol

[Omestes]

Murdoch wants to make money, and will abandon any plan that proves itself sufficiently unprofitable. Business men are tiresomely predictable where their wallets are concerned.

Maybe. But there are plenty of examples of failed business models churning along, long after they die. Can we look at music industry, or, increasingly, the newspaper industry, please? Big businesses are slow moving, conservative, behemoths, they love the status quo, and fear new models (for the most part). Murdoch wants to turn the internet into something he already knows, and profits wildly on, television. This is like his moronic attempt at pay-walling his news outlets, he wanted to make online content EXACTLY like paper content.

It doesn't matter if this really works or not. Ideally the motives are profit, but the general motives are more psychological. CEOs are people, and people are prone to faulty motives, and the lack of long term planning and foresight. In the long term this might be abandoned, but in the short term they will fight for it, even if the rest of the population thinks its futile. Again, I will reference the various other media associations who are fighting an unpopular fight to maintain the status-quo, even if that fight is pretty much doomed in the long term.

I'm sick of people painting capitalism as a purely rational exercise. It isn't, and never will be. It is a concept run by people, and people are shockingly non-rational.

I doubt there is a conspiracy. It just is a bunch of people acting like people.

Re:lol

[Unequivocal]

Hmm - I'm having trouble reconciling your use of "colossal failure" with "excess of resources" -- do you mean failure in a moral or other sense rather than the business sense? He's made a pile of cash doing things his own way for a long time. I don't admire the guy but I accept that he's been very successful.

Good thing

[Dunbal]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

Re:Good thing

[AnonymousClown]

I just imagined a "FOX Internet". Imagine this - a web portal and search engine that will give you just Fox' narrative. Watch Beck and he mentions something and he says, "Don't believe me! Read for yourself!" So you search on FOX.net and come across foxwiki and it says Global Warming is a LIBERAL myth created as an excuse for wealth transfer and for more taxation for LIBERAL causes.

I think there's a lot of money to be made here.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

I just imagined an "MS-NBC Internet". Imagine this - a web portal and search engine that will give you just Microsoft and GE/NBC/Comcast narrative. Watch Maddow and she mentions something and she says, "Don't believe me! Read for yourself!" So you search on BING.net and come across MSwiki and it says The Constitution is a CONSERVATIVE myth created as an excuse for wealth transfer and for more corporate monopolies.

Re:Good thing

[Pharmboy]

Doesn't matter. He can choose to make HIS websites as linear as he chooses. Of course, fewer and fewer people will visit them, but hey, he can do that if he chooses. A few media companies are making the same mistake that Detroit did a few decades ago: Telling the customer what they want, thinking they didn't have a choice but to be be spoon fed the dog food that Detroit was dishing out. Toyota, Nissan (Datsun) and Honda pretty much built an American empire on a foundation of Detroit's arrogance. That's one of the beauties of an open, capitalistic market: It is self-correcting with time.

Re:Good thing

[KingFrog]

Just wanted to thank everyone for feeding the troll. His post succeeded in taking nearly all the discussion off the actual point - however silly the original point was.

Re:Good thing

[jonbryce]

And nearly everyone stopped visiting his (London) Times Newspaper website after he started charging for it. Readership down from 10,000,000 to 10,000.

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[westlake]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

The New York Daily News [1919] didn't die with the death of Joseph Medill Patterson. The Daily Mail [1896] wasn't buried with Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, in 1922.

It would appear that "The Great Man" theory of history is revived whenever it is convenient.

Re:Good thing

[sethstorm]

...and like Harper, his ideological attacks won't either.

If he's sold his immortal soul for physical immortality, you might be wrong.

Re:Good thing

[munky99999]

What's really scary is the possibility that we are getting this very same thing from google-bing. Well not to the level of eliminating global warming or eliminating open source; but some bit of censorship of making it more difficult to find some things or eliminate. In addition to the known government censorship and malware/cp censorship.

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

There's already an Internet that has a liberal bias. It's called "The Internet".

Conservatism has been often described as a political philosophy that denies or tries to prevent change. Remember Buckley's famous line about conservatism standing at the portal of history, yelling "Stop!".

Well, that pretty much means that the Internet, by definition, is a liberal institution. A politically liberal institution, just by its very existence. Sure, there's lots of conservative stuff on the Internet, but the medium itself is liberal. Ever notice that whenever you see a political website change it's always from conservative to liberal and never the other way around (Little Green Footballs comes to mind)? And if you find a political blog that does not allow comments (moderated or not) it's always a conservative site? It's because the Internet by itself, just by its egalitarian nature, tugs to the Left. Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right. Ted Turner gave an interview not long ago where he talks about a lot of discussion went on at CNN at the end of his tenure to make it more Right-Wing. And in fact, in the past year it has indeed moved to the Right. If you look at the Sunday morning network news shows over the past 30 years, the guests have trended conservative by a 5-3 ratio. Because that's the nature of a one-way medium.

This is why some of the biggest corporations are working so hard to transform the Internet into a "linear" experience, where information is helpfully provided through the corporate filter and non-complying voices are marginalized or negated.

The clock is ticking, too. Without Net Neutrality laws very soon, the Internet is going to become a dystopic mutation of what we thought it might become a decade or two ago. It will become the Bizarro-world, opposite of an open forum where anyone can reach a wide audience without having to pass through the gates of money and power. It will do for the free exchange of ideas and information what Fox News has done for news.

In other words, it will become television, except you'll have to pay for it and watch commercials.

Today, I read about how the networks are trying to force the manufacturers of DVRs to disable the fast forward button during commercials (again). Think about this approach applied to your Internet.

In ten years, there's a good chance that when two or more of us meet, the main topic of conversation will be how great the Internet used to be. When it comes, the change will have happened so fast we will barely believe it. And remember, the Internet as we know it today was the happy accident of a technology becoming available before the richest and most powerful could "prepare it" for our consumption. Once it's gone, it will be gone forever.

"Free" markets, my ass.

Re:Good thing

[melikamp]

What if they scan his brain and 70 years from now this data will be uploaded into an artificial brain. And at that point Murdoch II will uncover an old hidden will that will transfer the corporation back to him, and then he will resume normal operations for the rest of human existence.

Re:Good thing

[quacking duck]

Assuming for simplicity that those 10,000 are all web-only readers (though print subscribers also have free online access), that's 10,000 x £2/week = £20,000, or just over £1 million a year.

Even if only half of those are web-only readers, half a million pounds/year is probably more than they were making on web ads when it was free.

They also have less load on their servers and less bandwidth costs by serving 1000x fewer viewers.

The upside is that there's fewer people reading Murdoch-sponsored news.

Re:Good thing

[Thing I am]

You use your mouth purdier than a $20.00 whore.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Conservatism has been often described as a political philosophy that denies or tries to prevent change.

Which is why I've never liked the word "conservative". I'm registered Republican and yet want to repeal the Patriot Act, shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and legalize marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. I can hardly be called conservative, despite people's attempts to attach it to me

Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom. It's as if they want to restore a 1500s-style political system in modern society, where the common man is treated like wards of the government. Rolling our individual liberty back 400 years, like serfs, is true conservativism.
.

>>>Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right.

Maybe in the UK but not in the US. The networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all lean left and it's been that way since the 1950s. The only right-leaning channel is FOX News and that's a recent development (it didn't pass 50% coverage until 2002).
.

>>>Without Net Neutrality laws very soon.....

Or we could just break-up the Cable monopolies. If I were free to choose Comcast or Cox or Time or Cablevision or GoogleTV or Verizon or ATTT or..... it wouldn't matter if they chose to block websites. I could just change companies the same way I change grocery stores. Companies would quickly realize that censoring the net is a sure way to lose customers, and stop doing it.

Re:Good thing

[melikamp]

The clock is ticking, too. Without Net Neutrality laws very soon, the Internet is going to become a dystopic mutation of what we thought it might become a decade or two ago. It will become the Bizarro-world, opposite of an open forum where anyone can reach a wide audience without having to pass through the gates of money and power. It will do for the free exchange of ideas and information what Fox News has done for news.

I like being an optimist about this one. Everyone who makes internet work is completely hooked on it, especially on the freedom of expression bit. It looks like most people who actually develop and maintain internet are some of our biggest allies. Anyway, it's too late. Majority of people here in the US already know what wealth of information and interaction they can buy from a good ISP, and they know how much it costs. The consumer base is moving on, and there is absolutely nothing TV can do to reverse this process.

Re:Good thing

[jesset77]

Which is why I've never liked the word "conservative". I'm registered Republican and yet want to repeal the Patriot Act, shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and legalize marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. I can hardly be called conservative, despite people's attempts to attach it to me

TBH these qualities you list sound more Libertarian than Republican or conservative. Are you sure the Republican Party is best representing your interests? It's hard to find authoritative definitions on this subject, but my reading is that the American Republican Party is a Conservative party who's goals are to retard cultural and scientific progress, make war and consolidate power amongst large business and the church.

I mean, I know that sounds harsh and all, but I honestly can't determine what other goals they have from their track record.

I am a Libertarian, and my belief is that the greatest common good can be found by maximizing personal liberty. This implies repealing the Patriot Act, shrinking governmental responsibility to the level mandated by the constitution (the people's contract with the federal government), repealing the prohibition of recreational drugs, erasing the sexist boundaries around the definition of marriage, etc etc.

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

I could just change companies the same way I change grocery stores.

Choose whatever grocery store you want. Almost all the products in every store are made by a handful of companies.

You only think you have choices. And if you could choose between 5 different ISPs it wouldn't be long before it became 4 ISPs. As long as you have unlimited money in politics, you're going to have unlimited corporate power in the Justice Department, Congress and the Courts.

Let's talk again when you're ready for publicly-funded elections, with instant runoff and no electronic voting. If you're not ready for those things, it doesn't matter if you call yourself liberal, conservative, libertarian or Tea Party. You're not ready to stop being a serf.

Re:Good thing

[kaizokuace]

If cable monopolies were broken up the government would have to then take ownership of the lines. The whole reason we have these crazy de facto monopolies is due to ownership of lines. There are a lot of companies out there but none of them play on each others' turf. There needs to be access to more than one cable provider in the same area or more than one fios or dsl or whatever format.

Re:Good thing

[FourthAge]

TV in the UK pulls left, just like in the US, and probably even more so. Consider the BBC. The other channels are quite similar, editorially.

The UK does have some Fox-like media, some of it even owned by Murdoch, but like Fox it has basically zero political influence. It is merely another way for the establishment to keep the serfs in line by pretending that someone is speaking for them.

PopeRatzo recognises that the establishment does this, but he still believes that better democracy is the answer (ha), that everything is too rightwing (lol), and that the Internet will help. Well, we can certainly hope. But until people like Ratzo stop using the established media's definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" on the Internet, it seems unlikely that they can even understand what the problem actually is.

Re:Good thing

[WitnessForTheOffense]

I'm not sure why you're a registered Republican based on the issues you mention. While both Democrats and Republicans seem typically interested in maintaining political power and supporting the interests of their corporate sponsors, the Republicans tend to have the worst record on the issues you're opposed to. They support the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, and big government when it suits them.

The alternative to being treated like wards of the government is being treated like slaves of the corporations. If you're opposed to either, then we need to play them off each other instead of letting them play us off of either of them.

If you vote Republican, you're voting against your own interests. Many Republicans already do that (for instance the Tea Party patriots who vote Republican and think that Glenn Beck is some kind of grass roots patriot and not a millionaire blowhard more akin to a televangelist).

I don't like the Democrats either, but they tend to be the lesser of two evils.

Re:Good thing

[Local ID10T]

The New York Daily News [1919] didn't die with the death of Joseph Medill Patterson. The Daily Mail [1896] wasn't buried with Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, in 1922.

It would appear that "The Great Man" theory of history is revived whenever it is convenient.

I have never heard of any of them...

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

But Nick Denton isn't, and he's made Fark suck worse than it did when it posted SuperDeluxe paid-sponsor links.

Gawker Networks doesn't have any good content, it merely links to good content, and then charges other sites, like Fark, good money to force us to click through a Gawker site in order to get at the actual content.

Re:Good thing

[careysub]

...

Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom. It's as if they want to restore a 1500s-style political system in modern society, where the common man is treated like wards of the government. ...

Clearly you have no idea what governments and social conditions were like in the 1500s. "Wards of the government"?! Perhaps you have your education from Glenn Beck University?

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up clearly he knows about politics

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

"Free" markets, my ass.

Ironically, markets that lack government intervention do not remain free for very long at all. They start out free, with lots of open competition and innovation. Then, eventually, someone wins, sets up barriers-to-entry, and controls the market. So, the market isn't free anymore. It is free from government, but not from the cartel that controls it.

This is a fundamental paradox of capitalism. Everyone must compete, but no one must ever be allowed to win.

Re:Good thing

[mcrbids]

I was a Libertarian for many, many years until I realized that no matter what you do, Libertarianism could never address the 'tragedy of the commons'. This is at the heart of ecology, global warming, clean water, public education, and too many other things to name.

By my reckon, the United States is the first modern 'first world' country to actually try Libertarianism, with the orgy of deregulation, privatization, and 'free market' gospel.

It's destroying us - our economy is crumbling along with our infrastructure and the corporate media has everybody with an average or less IQ convinced that socialism is why. Remember - there are a LOT more idiots than geniuses, and they can vote!

I'm a born-again, left leaning moderate now!

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with your narrative is that it is utterly false. What the current internet is, is open, not left or right. You like the internet as it is. You are liberal. Therefore, you think the internet is liberal. Problem is, a lot of conservatives like the open nature of the internet too. You would argue that doesn't make the internet conservative; it similarly doesn't make it liberal.

What you are claiming is conservative is in actuality, simply love of control. Very few powerful men want to lose control if they have gained it. A great deal of men wish to have more than they currently possess. If you think big corporations care about whether the medium is left or right, think again; I seriously doubt they are that partisan when there is money to be made. As you probably know, there are a considerable number of liberals in upper management in companies, but that has not at all negated the tendency to seek control.

Both conservatives and liberals believe their opponents are seeking control. Both sides similarly fear this. Conservatives want liberals to keep their hands the hell off the market. Liberals want conservatives to keep their hands the hell off society. Libertarians and Authoritarians want all others to keep their hands the hell off of both, though for slightly different reasons than each other.

In ten years, it is more likely that you will admit you were wrong than that the internet as we know it now is gone, whether or not there is net neutrality.

What exactly has fox done for news? As far as I knew, the news was in the crapper a very long time ago, as we do not like having to take so much on faith, though we must. The very internet you love is what is killing the news as we had known it.

I am slightly disturbed that there is a market for your ass. ;)

Anyway, when the government grants a monopoly, it is clearly not a free market. Conservatives aren't all that happy about it either. A free market would allow competitors to spring up whenever it were advantageous to do so. If they were ruining the internet, there would be a very large audience willing to pay to not have their internet ruined, and competitors would come. All we need to do is allow it.

Re:Good thing

[SomeKDEUser]

You have made my day.

So the concept of externality is something someone can get at even when starting out as a libertarian. Yay! There is Hope!

Re:Good thing

[Artifakt]

I count myself as a liberal, of late, but I'm probably more conservative on drugs than you are. I support full legalisation of marijuana, but for now at least, I wouldn't go past decriminalizing simple possession of the harder drugs and would keep dealing illegal until we see more about what the pot law changes actually do. It bothers me that there are currently 17 federal agencies where some agents have full automatic weapons carry powers (outside of the Military itself). I don't just want to repeal the USAPATRIOT act, I'd like to cut that 17 way down, maybe to the point where the BATF and the IRS have to get an FBI agent or US Marshall to come along if they need physical force, certainly at least to the point where the only people at Treasury routinely carrying guns are either Secret Service on presidential guard duty or are guarding gold shipments. Never-the-less, you sound at least semi-rational in your views.
          With that said, I'm trying to figure out how you can claim with a straight face that Fox is the only network that doesn't lean left. It sounds to me like you are drawing a line that puts 65% or so of all Americans on the hard left, (in which case, I suggest you surrender to the inevitable.). I've seen stories where I thought there was a leftwards bias, but there are quite a few that go the opposite way. For example, remember the Rod Blagojevich scandal? One of Blagojevich's flunkies was recorded in a wiretap as saying the Obama camp was 'a bunch of boy scouts', who wouldn't play ball at all. ABC and MSN ran that story as an update to the scandal, and both had a headline with it saying some variation on " Obama has some explaining to do.". That's right wing bias right there - when the same evidence that shows a perp is guilty suggests you were as pure as the driven snow and didn't associate with the criminal act is when you don't have some 'splainin' to do, in any normal, sane world. Alternately, it was because some parts of the press were locked in pro Hillary mode at that time, or just trying to keep the race close so they could draw more viewers. Maybe it doesn't fit neatly into left/right at all, but it sure as shootin' doesn't make a good example of left wing bias.
          Just recently, we had the nutcase who took over the Discovery channel offices. NBC excerpted the part of the frootloop's manifesto where he referred to Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" as proof he was inspired by Liberal sources, but left out the parts where he talked about "ending all immigration and completely closing our borders", and "Eliminating the Anchor Babies". For the first 48 hours after the story broke, to see the whole manifesto you had to go to the BBC. I've seen dozens of stories such as that.
          You do know, don't you, that the real, classical left wants to try Bush and Cheney for war crimes? The real left (to the extent there is a single 'real' left) wants to nationalize all the investment banks that are 'too big to fail'. The left doesn't just want to repeal the Bush tax cuts on people making over 250 K a year, they want to raise the maximum rate - some of them to something like what it was in the Eisenhower era (90%). Yeah, I remember CBS giving time to Noam Chomsky's arguments on the 2010 Supreme court revocation of campaign finance limits. No wait, not one national news outlet put Chomsky on the air on that (AFAIK). A lot of the people who were, or are, the left wing equivalent of Rush and Glenn don't get any airtime at all. Actors shooting off their mouths get used instead to 'present both sides'.

Re:Good thing

[dbIII]

His son is almost as bad.

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[dbIII]

No, the early USSR tried it in some regions but gave it a different name. Anarchists have been around for a while but those in the USA just put a nice patriotic sounding label on it.

Re:Good thing

[Yaa 101]

>>>Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right.

Maybe in the UK but not in the US. The networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all lean left and it's been that way since the 1950s. The only right-leaning channel is FOX News and that's a recent development (it didn't pass 50% coverage until 2002). .

All these stations (and most opinion) are center to right wing from the point of view in my country, people from the US hardly know what is left wing due to the dominant right wing bias prevailing for centuries. Though even in my country the majority of people are shifting to the right.

Problem is that people have a choice to either dictatorial left wing or indifference right wing, both are extremely corrosive last 30 years, and since people mostly want to be left alone they choose for indifference.

Anyway, the shift towards centralized internet and away from internet on the edges is in full swing because the powers that be are more afraid and paranoid then ever in history, their paranoid is also fed by being able to measure more precise.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

> In ten years, there's a good chance that when two or more of us meet, the main topic of conversation will be how great the Internet used to be.

That's already happened!

Remember the internet before the masses discovered it? Long 'bout late 1980's? Compare to what it is now.

It's gone to shit. Ok, there is a lot MORE of it - but most of that more is astroturfing, advertizing, commercialization, spam, youtube comments that make even the stupidest usenet poster of the 80's seem like a rocket scientist, SEO sites, top sites, Farmville, and so on. The signal has been lost through the noise of several billion idiots.

The internet died in about 1996.

You're correct of course. You're just 14 years too late in the observation.

Re:Good thing

[Yaa 101]

I think that it is a great loss for Murdoch, like Berlusconi he is more interested in using his opinion channels to influence every day live and politics than making a direct buck from it.
10.000 people reading his bias is generating way less influence than 10.000.000 people doing that, personally this makes me happy not sad.

Re:Good thing

[the_womble]

With 10 million readers he would only need ad revenues of £2 per thousand readers to make the same revenues. If each reader views a few pages, it would take very low ad CPM rates.

That is keeping your assumption that all current readers are paying the full rate: that ignores both print subscribers and people on the £1 for the first month trial rate.

Re:Good thing

[rjch]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

Maybe not, but I suspect he'll be around for a while yet. His mother is still going strong, although she's a much more pleasant character than her son.

It's a pity more of that character didn't rub off on her son.

Re:Good thing

[EricTheO]

>>>Conservatism has been often described as a political philosophy that denies or tries to prevent change.

Which is why I've never liked the word "conservative". I'm registered Republican and yet want to repeal the Patriot Act, shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and legalize marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. I can hardly be called conservative, despite people's attempts to attach it to me

Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom. It's as if they want to restore a 1500s-style political system in modern society, where the common man is treated like wards of the government. Rolling our individual liberty back 400 years, like serfs, is true conservativism. .

>>>Yet television, by its nature, tugs to the Right.

Maybe in the UK but not in the US. The networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all lean left and it's been that way since the 1950s. The only right-leaning channel is FOX News and that's a recent development (it didn't pass 50% coverage until 2002). .

>>>Without Net Neutrality laws very soon.....

Or we could just break-up the Cable monopolies. If I were free to choose Comcast or Cox or Time or Cablevision or GoogleTV or Verizon or ATTT or..... it wouldn't matter if they chose to block websites. I could just change companies the same way I change grocery stores. Companies would quickly realize that censoring the net is a sure way to lose customers, and stop doing it.

You are using "Double Speak" my friend, if you don't realizes that Corporations are pushing an agenda in politics that would have us all act as "Serfs" to the Landholders and Corporate leaders for their self interests and profit. Sure they claim to be doing things to help create jobs, but this is for the most part a lie. PROFIT is their god and goal nothing and no one else. In the end they care nothing for patriotism or the common good. Coporations and their Executives see them selves a the Svengali's of commerce and politics. The very rich are so out of touch with the middle and lower classes, for the most part, that they can't even see the harm they are doing. Regulation is what is needed. Corporate law needs a major revamp to bring the balance of power back to "We The People"!

Re:Good thing

[rickb928]

I'm a Republican, and I feel much the same way. I'm not a Libertarian because they go much too far for my beliefs, and they seem to be more wacko than even the hard-left Democrats I know.

For now, Republican is my best shot. But they are just as corporatist as Dems, and I may have to jump ship. I've already voted for a primary candidate not of the party's choice this year, and I may have to vote for a Democrat or two to be able to sleep at night this November...

Re:Good thing

[winwar]

"TV in the UK pulls left, just like in the US..."

Exactly what definition of "left" are you using? If by more liberal than Fox news, sure. If you mean left of political center, you are incorrect. As a reference point, Obama is best described as moderate conservative.

"The UK does have some Fox-like media, some of it even owned by Murdoch, but like Fox it has basically zero political influence."

Which explains a great deal. Fox is not a news organization. It is a political organization that pretends to be a news organization. A news organization at least attempts to present accurate information.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is it that you mistake your center for left and your left for far left, eh, there is not way to determine what is true left or true right, which why we should crap that notion along with conservative and liberal, many would call me conservative or try to stick me with that label, yet in many things I would be extremely left, that is not to say that on things I am extremely right, just that I have my own mind

Also as I see it
Fox: Extreme Right
CNN, ABC, NBC, etc: Extreme Left

All of them full of bullshit and biases, you need to determine the facts because all sources will have a biases ALL OF THEM

Re:Good thing

[Keen Anthony]

So you believe that a highly distributed mechanical construct populated by millions of self-serving and somewhat self-centered individuals chasing their own goals has an institutional political bias? You surely can't be speaking about the machinery itself, so you must be speaking of the people. And thus, you *must* be saying that people collectively are liberal.

I have an alternative theory, the Internet has no tendency, political or otherwise, other than to persistently make information available to the widest audience despite attempts by people to stop it. Any political bias you may observe is merely the result of you choosing to observe that phenomena. It's as if the internet is everything at once: liberal, conservative, capitalist, communist, theocratic, hateful, friendly, loud, silly, serious, etc., and it comes crashing down into an observable singularity only when you look directly at it, but you can only observe a tiny sliver of it because it's too quantum a phenomenon to observe for very long.

The thing about Murdoch is, he's smarter than you. He's smarter that the lot of us. He's no more conservative than I am. I'm a political conservative-social moderate Republican who hates hippies and libertarian tea baggers pretty equally. Murdoch saw a "liberal" bias in news reporting. Actually, what he saw was an opportunity to be an alternative to the mainstream and he went for it. He was the college alternative rock to glam arena rock and heavy metal. He saw an opportunity to cash in on a demographic that was under-represented, that is, people who want to see salacious tabloid news stories followed by half-naked young people on TV making out (Temptation Island, A Current Affair, Hardline, Melrose Place, etc). As the '80s and '90s passed, and the right-wingers grew more malcontent, he pulled Fox News to the right in order to capture them. It's about monetizing anger and good old Christian guilt in order to solidify viewership.

It's not all doom and gloom.... except for the video recording market. We're fucked there. It's the early 80s again and the industry is trying to take away our VCRs. No blu-ray video recording for us, do-not-copy flags on HD broadcasts, meh. You know what? If you want to still watch new TV, invest in analogue gear, learn to accept your losses in the digital revolution, and prosper. If you can convert it to analogue, it's yours for keeps.

Re:Good thing

[SuricouRaven]

Many libertarians end up in the republican party after realising that the duopoly is unbreakable. The only area in which republicans and democrats cooperate is in making sure that no third party or independant ever gains any significent amount of influence. They've got the US political system tied up so tight that, for all practical purposes, it's impossible to play the game if you don't join one of the two major teams. Thus people end up joining a party they do not agree with, simply because they agree with the other one even less.

Re:Good thing

[SuricouRaven]

The people who make the internet work really, really like being able to pay rent and buy food. They have to do what the managers tell them - and if they don't, they will be fired and replaced with engineers who are not burdened by princibles or ideals.

Re:Good thing

[rolfwind]

If I were free to choose Comcast or Cox or Time or Cablevision or GoogleTV or Verizon or ATTT or..... it wouldn't matter if they chose to block websites. I could just change companies the same way I change grocery stores. Companies would quickly realize that censoring the net is a sure way to lose customers, and stop doing it.

Or they can be barred from selling "internet service" because they aren't selling the internet, but AOLnet, Comcastnet or whatever the company is, and selling it as internet would be as fraudulent as selling phone service that randomly block service (or worse, only connects you to a limited set of numbers).

Just like milk producers can't decide to water down their milk by 50% and still label it "milk", ISPs shouldn't be doing this. I paid for internet service, not a subset. The bandwidth is mine, not theirs, to dictate. No double dipping, no complaining, end of story.

The free market only works with educated consumers. Educated consumers rely on a reliable points of reference to make decisions. Just as soda bottler can't decide to change the meanings of gallon, quart, liter, etc. from accepted norms, in order to bamboozle customers and eke out greater margins, an ISP shouldn't mess with the accepted meaning/perception of internet to play their profit games.

Some libertarians think it's okay to allow this, but it would be similiar as viewing it as okay for mechanics to sell an "oil change" but then surprise the customer who complains there is no fresh oil in his car, to respond "Yeah, I changed your oil with that of another car's. If you wanted fresh oil, you should have paid the $10 fresh oil surcharge."

That is clearly fraud on behalf of the mechanic, for subverting a definition, even though it may be in the fine print. Same case with ISPs.

There doesn't even need to a net neutrality law, just a definition of internet to abide by, and that ISPs cannot label themselves as such or sell internet if they don't abide with it, otherwise slap on good old false advertising aka fraud charges.

And double dipping is just plain theft, selling their client's bandwidth on the other end.

Re:Good thing

[jonbryce]

They were making about £1 per reader per year in advertising revenue, so income has fallen by 90%.

Re:Good thing

[penguin_dance]

The clock is ticking, too. Without Net Neutrality laws very soon, the Internet is going to become a dystopic mutation of what we thought it might become a decade or two ago. It will become the Bizarro-world, opposite of an open forum where anyone can reach a wide audience without having to pass through the gates of money and power. It will do for the free exchange of ideas and information what Fox News has done for news.

You mean give viewers a choice?

In other words, it will become television, except you'll have to pay for it and watch commercials.

Hmmm...I don't know where you get your access to the internet, but here we have to pay right now...and yes there are ads, although adblocker helps.

Re:Good thing

[Keen Anthony]

I won't speak for him, but I consider myself a Reagan Republican in that I share many of the values of the former President Ronald Reagan. I am against general legalization of marijuana though I concede it's benefits to some. I am strongly supportive of same sex marriage and women's reproductive rights. However, I am against nanny state laws - something Dems tend to support. However, I'm nowhere near at the extreme where I want to do away with FDA and EPA. And I support public schools. Basically, I am at total odds with the current public face of the Republican Party, but honestly much of that is out of the contrarian trash TV nature that politics has taken now. Pressures from the right-wing Tea Party only compound the strain on the party. Plus, the Christian conservatives are just pissed at the Republican Party because they felt used. I don't know why the gays don't feel equally used by the Dems.

The Republican Party has traditionally branded itself as a "big tent" party, the notion being that there is room for many ideas. It was not a conservative party. It was actually a progressive party. In the 1970s, there were troubles within the party which lead to an influx of social conservatives, many of whom fled the Democratic party (traditionally a Southern party with socially conservative ideas: pro-segregation being one). The Democratic Party become more liberal. It was like a magnet switching polarity in once sense.

Today's Republican Party is very socially conservative, at least it appears so outwardly, just as the Democratic Party appears liberal outwardly. In truth, there's a lot of crossover. No one who knows anything about American politics could ever call Senator Joe Lieberman a liberal, and by today's definition, Ronald Reagan is no conservative. As commodore64_love has indicated, there's a problem with how we use "conservative" and "liberal". When I think "Democrat" I think about the pro-censorship activities of the Dems regarding rock music, video games, and film. That's not exactly liberal. Typically people think of the Republicans as anti-homosexual. Many are, and many are not, including the governor of California and myself. The Democratic Party overwhelmingly supported attempts to prevent same sex marriage during the '90s. Again, not very liberal. The Republican Party was active in civil rights back when "Dixiecrats" were trying to maintain segregationist policies. That's not very conservative.

It's hard to even classify either party as being more big-business than another, since both parties are in the pockets of various big industries and coalition groups. So really, it's about perception: party-in-power = stay the course + change is bad vs party-out-of-power = change is good + we're going in the wrong direction.

The Patriot Act was bipartisan, and it should not be evaluated in terms of conservative vs liberal. It was purely psychological, and thus a reaction to jarring events. Punch a pacifist hard enough, and he will react. Here, we reacted wrongly. So why maintain the Patriot Act? Because we are a free enterprise country and entrepreneurs discovered there is a lot of money to be made on the fear of terrorism. A whole new industry sprang up in just a couple of years after the Patriot Act, and it won't go away because it has its own lobby.

Personally, I have a strong distrust of Libertarians (as in the Party). The fact is, if you're an American and you even remotely believe in American free enterprise and freedom, then you are a libertarian. But I find that the official Libertarian Party platform to be too anarchic for me, too selfish, too "Every man for himself unless its my house that's burning down, in which case, send the taxed paid fire fighters and police". I've watched Ron Paul's rant since the '80s when he could only get face time on the Morton Downy Jr show late at night. From what he's shown me, the Libertarian's goal is like the Communist's goal, workable on the smallest of scales where all the factors of production come from the same area and a pure fantasy at a large scale such as in a major industrialized nation with a global economy.

Re:Good thing

[janzen]

Good points, and I'd agree that the Internet has a certain "liberal" bias -- but in a classical liberal sense. I certainly don't see that it "tugs to the Left", or to the Right either. If anything, it seems to have a very individualistic, small-l libertarian flavour, being opposed to interference from governments of all political stripes, however well-intentioned or hostile. Let's hope that that continues, and that your prediction turns out to be wrong.

Re:Good thing

[clarkkent09]

Well I am a libertarian (with a small l) and even though I disagree with some of the Republican policies (mainly to do with war and religion, but hey see where Democrats stand on those issues) I am sure that the Republican party represents those ideas you listed in your last sentence far better than the Democrat party. As I see it, the Republican party in the USA has two distinct camps that coexist uneasily: 1) classical liberalism (individual liberty, less government) which has a lot in common with Libertarians, and 2) religious conservative (church-family-military) which ultimately comes from European nobility. Fortunately, these days seems like the former is getting more traction but the latter is necessary to get the votes. As for the Libertarian party, well without meaning to sound too patronizing, I wish it well and I hope some day it becomes relevant but in the meantime you are welcome to help push the Republican party in the right direction and actually make a difference.

Re:Good thing

[hitmark]

Whats to say the corporation would not at the time have picked up a inertia all its own?

Or are we hoping that stockholders manage to make the whole new "empire" more liberal given time?

I find the latter unlikely, as stockholders appear to be conservative by pure existence.

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

Murdoch saw a "liberal" bias in news reporting. Actually, what he saw was an opportunity to be an alternative to the mainstream and he went for it.

I'd give you an example of someone else who "saw an opportunity to be an alternative to the mainstream and took it" but I'd violate Godwin's Law.

And you are confusing "richer than you" with "smarter than you". It's something a lot of conservatives do, so don't feel bad.

Re:Good thing

[The_Wilschon]

It's actually pretty easy (philosophically, not necessarily practically) for libertarianism to handle the tragedy of the commons. Libertarianism is not the same thing as anarchism. Libertarianism's claim is that the only proper internal role of government is to arbitrate where there is a conflict of rights. "Your right to swing your arm stops at the end of my nose" and all that. The tragedy of the commons exists because there is a conflict among people's right to use a common resource. Not everyone can use it all up. Therefore, libertarianism would claim that it is the government's job to arbitrate among everyone who wants to use a common resource, and thereby prevent the tragedy of the commons. Rule of law (often strongly associated with libertarianism) would further claim that the government should so arbitrate not by having a bureaucracy of officials who, on their own judgement, say "yea" or "nay", but by having a written, almost algorithmic, process for arbitrating, to remove graft, favoritism, and other bad things.

Now, of course, how you go about writing the laws to accomplish this is a very very difficult question, and the answer might well lead you to something that doesn't look much like what we think of as libertarianism. I don't know. But libertarianism, considered properly, at least desires to address the tragedy of the commons.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Really someone needs to arrange an accident. Can't we hire the guy that was on Fringe a few weeks ago?

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

Why do you get modded "interesting" for your FOX bashing, but I get modded "troll" for MSNBC bashing? I guess we now know where the Moderators bias lies.

Note this is just a joke:

I just imagined an "MS-NBC Internet". Imagine this - a web portal and search engine that will give you just Microsoft and GE/NBC/Comcast narrative. Watch Maddow and she mentions something and she says, "Don't believe me! Read for yourself!" So you search on BING.net and come across MSwiki and it says The Constitution is a CONSERVATIVE myth created as an excuse for wealth transfer and for more corporate monopolies.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Your rant and this entire article. Visit youtube and you'll find liberal posts, conservative posts, libertarian posts, potheads, jesus freaks, muslims... and youtube is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution

Including the regulation of interstate slave trafficking?

Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom.

Those are the "concern trolls" of the liberal movement. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are actually authoritarian right-wingers attempting to frame their message to capture liberals. A real leftist, by definition, believes in the same libertarian principles that Libertarians do ... as applied to private individuals lives. They only disagree about the functions of economics and what's truly in the best interests of all.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>If cable monopolies were broken up the government would have to then take ownership of the lines.

I'd be okay with that. The government already owns my water and sewer lines, and they do a competent job. I'd be alright with them owning the Internet/TV Fiber under the street, and then leasing it to whichever company I desire.

Or: Let Comcast keep ownership, and require them to lease to competitors, just the same way the Phone lines operate (owned by Bell but my provider is ATT).

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Obama is best described as moderate conservative.

Hahahahaha. Hardly. Obama is almost as far left as politicians like Mao or Lenin. i.e. Pro-big-government, but Obama still supports private ownership of the land.

Meanwhile the Republicans lie in the middle (some pro-government; some anti-government), while someone like Ron Paul or Thomas Jefferson (libertarian) lies on the right. An anarchist would lie on the far right.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

I typically vote Libeertarian (Harry Browne, Bob Barr), but I still remain registered Republican so I can vote in the primaries.

For me the ideal would be for the libertarians to take-over the Republican party, so then we might actually win for a change instead of having 1% of the vote. What we need is more Ron Pauls running for the R nomination.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Clearly you have no idea what governments and social conditions were like in the 1500s

Of course I do. The common man was ignored as having nothing important to say, was not allowed to keep his wealth due to heavy taxation, and often lived off the generosity (dole/welfare) of the government leaders. Sound familiar? We are heading in that direction.

It's what the 1776 and 1789 revolutions were about - Recognizing that the Individual has a right to keep his wealth, run his own life, and government leaders should be kept near-powerless to interfere. NOW we have a government that interferes with everything, even your daily visit to the toilet (regulated & taxed).

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>I'm trying to figure out how you can claim with a straight face that Fox is the only network that doesn't lean left.

95% of the stories on ABC, NBC, etc are cheerleading pieces about expanding government power. Sure every now and then they'll run an anti-obama piece or anti-government piece, but that 5% doesn't make up for the 95% of "we need more government" bias. Perhaps you don't see if because you are a Democrat and LIKE government, but I grit my teeth constantly because I consider government the cause behind most problems (like the housing boom), not the solution.

As for legalizing drugs, it comes down to basic rights:

If a woman can say "it's my body" and kill the human fetus inside of her, then I can ALSO say "it's my body" and put drugs into it. It's about the right to own your own body, for both women and men. No government should be allowed to interfere with that right, upto and including suicide.

Re:Good thing

[dtmancom]

And if you find a political blog that does not allow comments (moderated or not) it's always a conservative site?

You have some interesting thoughts, but I feel compelled to address this one: I had a "conservative leaning" website for about a decade, and I had to disable comments because it was targeted for attack by the "Democratic Underground," a very left-leaning website. I was getting DOSed, host was getting hacked, and it was 2 or 3 injection attacks a day. I couldn't keep up, so I changed hosts and disabled comments. Then the phone calls to my home started. I was so disgusted by the whole experience I pretty much list the will to blog, so my site has been dead for years now... there is just a little forum I have locked down for use by me and my friends. For the record, I was never abusive or caustic, I just didn't think W was all that bad a President, and I got on their radar.
The locked down comments on my particular site aren't due to a stifling of free speech, it because of the aggression I experienced from so-called peace and free speech loving liberals. It isn't hard for me to suspect I am not the only site to get hit like that.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

What you're talking about is false advertising (selling milk that has 50% water, or internet where half is blocked), and I'm not aware of any libertarians who think that's okay. You may be thinking of anarchists, who are not libertarians.

On the other hand, did you ever consider some customers WANT their internet filtered? I know a lot of parents would happily join "Clean ISP" in order to block porn from their eyes or their children's eyes. Net neutrality would make it illegal for a company to offer this service.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Libertarianism could never address the 'tragedy of the commons'.

Sure they can. The L Party supports the necessity of natural monopolies like the water company or sewer company being run by (or regulated by) the government. And regulating clean air/water as a natural right of human individuals.
.

>>>the corporate media has everybody with an average or less IQ convinced that socialism is why our economy is crumbling

Hardly. It was the corporations that were pushing for the One Payer Plan and the Universal Insurance requirement. They like socialism. Why? $$$$$ that's why. From both the citizens and the government. Corporations love socialism, for the same reason schools love it. Money.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

You basically just proved the poster's point by tossing out the trite Glenn Beck label, you dumb sack of shit. Congrats! You're fuckhead #1,000,000 on Slashdot today! You win a Dr. Kervorkian suicide machine. Please make good use of it.

Re:Good thing

[Kvasio]

I'm afraid he can

Re:Good thing

[Omestes]

Your satire is warranted, but one problem; the various Fox talking heads have claimed that AGW is a liberal hoax made to spread socialism, or government control, or whatnot, while, as far as I can tell, the two liberal talking heads have never claimed that the Constitution is a conservative myth.

Actually I don't know a single liberal who disbelieves in the Constitution, or refuses to support it. Both "sides" have their own reading and emphasis of the document, and it is very hard, from an outsider view, to actually say one of them is "correct", since they both use the same document for evidence, and the same body of exterior text as justification. Personally I think the Constitution is a hostage held by both "sides" to further their blind ideological and egotistical partisan bickering.

Re:Good thing

[Omestes]

Your more a Libertarian than a Republican, or conservative then. Conservatives want to roll things back into some religious-free enterprise version of the mythic 50s (think Leave it To Beaver), God, Country and Family. Libertarians want to kill government, and allow some flavor of responsibility to reign. (I put that badly, I know, and someone will reply with a flaming correction)

Liberals think we have an obligation to help and protect those less fortunate, and that the government should exist to nurture the people under it. They don't want everyone to be a ward of the state (or whatnot), they want the state to help people to be better. Pretty much Liberals want us to be more like Europe or Canada.

Pretty much all three of these entities are working towards a mythological utopia based wholly on exclusion and blind ideology. Liberals will be third class citizens in a Libertarian or Conservative utopia, Libertarians will be third class citizens in a... etc... You get the point. Its like the brouhaha over Obama being elected, where the fringier elements of the right basically said "we represent the people, but the people voted the wrong way, and thus the people's opinion doesn't count", this scared the crap out of me. Its another version of "we know better", which is a phrase and ideology that has probably led to more harm than any other. And no, I'm not singling out any one side, I'm sure the result would have been the same no matter which partisan avatar would have won. America completely lost its ability to maintain social or politcal discourse. It is impossible in a society where everyone knows whats best for everyone else, and is always right.

Sorry for the rant, this is something that annoys the hell out of me. We act like a nation of spoiled two year olds now, and it is rather depressing.

As for the media... when your perched to the right or left, everything slightly less right or left than you looks further to the extreme than it probably is. Granted I don't watch network news much anymore (for reasons detailed above), but pretty much the right has Fox, and the left has MSNBC. The rest are rather centrist, or at least partisan schizophrenic.

Politics aside, I agree with your last sentiment, breaking up the monopolies. Concentrating media into a small number of hands is not good for the health of the state or populace.

Re:Good thing

[Omestes]

"libertarian" != "Libertarian"

I am a "libertarian", and pretty much disagree with the "Libertarians" on everything.

Re:Good thing

[Omestes]

95% of the stories on ABC, NBC, etc are cheerleading pieces about expanding government power.

They were doing the same when Bush was in office, up until the final year or two when the writing was on the wall, and popular opinion veered hard again him. Whoever gets elected next, Obama, whoever the right pushes, or space aliens from wherever ABC and NBC will be the cheerleader for them too. They like to be in good graces with the government, since it gives them access, they also like to be as completely non-confrontational and partisan as possible to maximize their viewing audience.

Basically MSNBC and Fox are niche markets, catering the the hard left and right. They are tabloids, and not really news networks.

Basically we have a dearth of real news currently. A decent news show should be as hated by the left as the right, and should be painted partisan by both.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Or we could just break-up the Cable monopolies. If I were free to choose Comcast or Cox or Time or Cablevision or GoogleTV or Verizon or ATTT or..... it wouldn't matter if they >> chose to block websites. I could just change companies the same way I change grocery stores. Companies would quickly realize that censoring the net is a sure way to lose >> customers, and stop doing it.

Unless they all start doing the very same thing, when changing companies won't have any effect at all.

Re:Good thing

[Keen Anthony]

Actually, I meant "smarter" as in keener and craftier, not as more intelligent. Sorry about that; dialectal differences and all. I do feel bad because I'm not a conservative, I'm a moderate. I'm "conservative" on specific issues and "liberal" on specific others. Don't feel bad about it though about assuming all Republicans are conservatives, it's a something a lot of liberals do. ;-)

No worries about violating Godwin's Law, Murdoch is a right bastard. No, he's probably not a Nazi. He personally has no problem with gays, and he's ranted about the Jews less than Rick Sanchez after a long weekend of hit-and-run drunk driving.

Murdoch is a shrewd mogul, and yes, like Hitler, he's good at playing on the emotions of the right wingers. Look at what he's doing in England regarding the BBC. He can't compete on quality, so he tries to make libertarian arguments that it's wrong for the BBC to provide free news, and even illegal, according to some of his rants. He'll work any angle to be number one. That's not conservative or liberal or anything political, it's just opportunistic.

Re:Good thing

[jesset77]

Thus people end up joining a party they do not agree with, simply because they agree with the other one even less.

I guess that strategy makes sense if you actually vote. Do people still do that? Who are these people, and why would you want to associate with them if they put Bush in power twice in a row?

Put simply, no matter who you vote for you're voting for wealth and incumbent power. Only they can afford to purchase the mind share required to woo millions of JoeThePlumbers at a time. I view this as a flaw in the purely democratic (and democratic republic) system: requiring too much specialized education from the layman.

The layman is fleeced every election, whether he votes or not, because the basic outcome (wealthy, well connected servant of incumbent power) represents every one of the only viable options.

The layman needs his voice represented. The problem is the voice of the layman is "taxes are too high" and "we need more school teachers" and "why are we dicking around in the middle east?" which cannot be expressed by voting elephant or donkey. Involving another handful of parties would not help to directly address this problem.

I think the ideal solution would be to build a governmental system which, instead of democratic-republic, is democratic-deferred. This is honestly an idea I got from another slashdot commenter, some years back. :D

Everyone gets to vote. On every issue. At every level of government they participate in. From municipal to state to federal to international, both NATO and treaty. That's the basis of Pure Democracy, and one of it's major failures is because no one but a professional politician (even then, a staff of professional politicians) can even hope to remain educated on literally every political decision in the world. That's where the "deferred" part comes in.

It's simple. You may cast your vote on an issue or a law directly, but very few people will almost ever. Instead, most people will "defer" each of their votes by proxy voting through any other voter. You can easily defer all of your votes through another (one would expect trusted and more well informed) person, or choose rafts of votes to defer in different directions. The person you defer to may in turn choose to defer again. You can set your votes on autopilot, "Just defer to my parents until I check in again". And that's it.

Doing this replaces an installed representative with a fluid field of experts who must work hard to maintain their trust with the electorate. People and organizations will work hard to achieve their political ends, and the easiest way to do so will be to win the deferrals of the common people to add clout to their aggregate votes. One wrong move will lose you supporters instantly. INSTANTLY. No waiting for another term, no impeachment hassle, just a "LOL FAIL" and the public moves on to someone more competent or more honest.

This puts Joe the Plumber in a position where he doesn't need to understand every issue, he just needs to identify someone more educated in politics than he is who shares his values. Official "political parties" would no longer be needed, though they may help people identify causes in an unofficial capacity.

Put me in that system or something comparable and I'll vote. I'm not wasting effort casting votes into an antiquated, broken system.

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

Keen Anthony, you sound smarter than the average person who's "conservative" on some issues and "liberal" on some others.

And I mean "smarter" as in "smarter" not "keener and craftier".

Re:Good thing

[PopeRatzo]

although adblocker helps.

How long do you think adblocker will last if the telco's take back "their" Internet?

Re:Good thing

[MichaelSmith]

Rupert Murdoch is 79. He can't live forever.

Thats an interesting question.

Re:Good thing

[VJ42]

Obama is almost as far left as politicians like Mao or Lenin.

Bull. The democrats in the US (including Obama) would be a centre right party if transplanted over either here in the UK or, indeed, almost any EU country. None of our countries are governed by leaders as far left as Mao or Lenin; not even the Scandinavian ones.

Hell, the welfare state in the UK was a product of The Beveridge Report, Obama isn't even as far left as we were in the 1940s, let alone anywhere near Mao or Lenin.

Re:Good thing

[AP31R0N]

"Meanwhile the so-called "liberals" seem intent to roll us back to Serfdom. It's as if they want to restore a 1500s-style political system in modern society, where the common man is treated like wards of the government. Rolling our individual liberty back 400 years, like serfs, is true conservativism."

This isn't +5 interesting. It's +5 unhinged.

i'll play your game, let me know if it rings true:

So called conservatives want a return to feudalism, where the many are powerless against the few who have all the resources. The elite will rule over us, weak will either serve in the rulers personal armies or be serfs.

Hey, you're right, putting imaginary arguments in the mouths of people who disagree with me DOES make them easier to attack!

Re:Good thing

[jonaskoelker]

Net neutrality would make it illegal for a company to offer this service.

"Please overwrite your /etc/hosts or \blah\etc\hosts with this file: [link]".

Either that, or allow the bill payer to log in to the ISP's web-based control center thing and enable/disable filtering there.

I'm sure it's possible to draft legislation that allows internet users to self-impose censorship and allows ISPs to help, without letting web service providers (i.e. Youtube) screw over users by paying ISPs to screw over competitors.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all lean left

Maybe in the US but not in the UK. Remember that your US-centric idea of "Left" is way over there on the right somewhere for the vast majority of the world.

Re:Good thing

[causality]

I am against general legalization of marijuana though I concede it's benefits to some. [ ... ] However, I am against nanny state laws

Telling an adult that he/she may not put marijuana into his/her own body is an excellent example of a nanny-state law. It just screams "we know what's good for you".

The whole "war on (some) drugs" is one of the most excellent examples of failed public policy available anywhere. Particularly noteworthy is the strong, irrational desire to continue doing it even though we've known for a long time that it isn't actually preventing anyone from obtaining drugs and that it provides a great source of funding for organized crime. The desire to continue the "war on (some) drugs" is obviously not based on any measurement of whether any of its stated goals have been achieved and that's what makes it so interesting. A psychologist could have a field day with one of its more ardent supporters.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why I've never liked the word "conservative". I'm registered Republican and yet want to repeal the Patriot Act, shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and legalize marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. I can hardly be called conservative, despite people's attempts to attach it to me

While I do agree with some of your points, I suspect your views may be colored by how well things have gone for you and those around you (and if they have not, please accept my apology for my presumption).

I've made huge amounts of money and been disabled (crawling around on the floor in agony disabled, for months on end). I had a kid, but surprise surprise, they don't all turn out "perfect". Oh, I love my kiddo more than you could imagine, but she's autistic, and that means special classrooms and lots of extra money. This is not Sparta and we do not discard children that don't fit into the one size fits all mold (and you may not like paying for other people's kids, but you'll want someone to treat your high PSA levels when you get older and carry your groceries out to the car because it's a pain the butt with your walker).

I've seen how business actually does have to be tracked, because we have chemicals that are so toxic that you'd have better odds as a porpoise in the gulf right now than you would if some of that got dumped and made it into your water supply.

All in all, I still consider myself extremely lucky. I've seen far more misery and suffering than I've had to put up with myself. I do agree, we should hold government accountable for doing a good job, but we do need them to do certain jobs and they seem to be the only chance we have at getting someone doing it without a damanaging amount of self interest.

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>UK or, indeed, almost any EU country

I've been following the EU Parliament's recently passed laws, and they DO lean almost as far left as Mao or Lenin. They don't support the abolishment of private ownership of land, but they support all the other ideas of those two leaders. How was it that Daniel Hannan put it?

"The former communist party apparatchiks are now elected MEPs or bureaucrats inside the EU buildings. And they've brought their eastern european communist ideas with them, for application across the whole of the european continent."

Re:Good thing

[commodore64_love]

>>>>95% of the stories on ABC, NBC, etc are cheerleading pieces about expanding government power.
>>
>>They were doing the same when Bush was in office,

That doesn't negate my point.
Bush was a big-government tyrant.
Someone should have shot him.

Re:Good thing

[Luyseyal]

Indeed. I came to the conclusion that Libertarian-topia was synonymous with Lawyer World where every basic action in life is mediated by your personal lawyer through contract law. What a mess. All it takes is a few stalwarts to completely ruin any "public" project. Even cable TV or phone lines are impossible because you have to negotiate with literally EVERYONE. You can forget any wireless EM spectrum, too, because it will be all-border-blasters-all-the-time.

Libertarianism serves a reasonable purpose in questioning social conservatism and reminding people of their personal liberties. But they can pry the technocrats from my cold, red-taped hands.

$0.02USD,
-l

Re:Good thing

[VJ42]

>>>UK or, indeed, almost any EU country

I've been following the EU Parliament's recently passed laws, and they DO lean almost as far left as Mao or Lenin. ... they support all the other ideas of those two leaders.

So let me get this straight, you have a two party duopoly (both running on near identical platforms) throughout your 50 states and you call the EU parliament with it's well over 100 parties (sitting in 8 groups - one of which is independents) from it's 27 states Leninist and Maoist? Idiot.

Re:Good thing

[Keen Anthony]

Kinda. Let me explain my belief on this. I'm no libertarian. I believe strongly in the social contract between citizen and government. The Republic cannot survive without a functional society, and a functional society is nothing without laws which necessarily require individuals to give up some personal liberties.

For example, you give up the right to drive drunk at 100 mph through a residential neighborhood near a school. Another example, you give up the right to deny your child an education of some sort, whether public or private because society does not need the burden of dealing with your uneducated kid when he grows older. You also give up the right to say that blacks, jews, and gays cannot shop in your stores. It used to be that I thought these were libertarian values, but the Libertarian Party has explicitly told me they are not. Go figure.

In some instances, it's okay to say we know what's good for you, or more likely: "I don't care what you want; your wants endanger the rest of us."

So in re marijuana, my concern is having streets full of doped up individuals. It'll look like China during the Opium Wars. I at least want marijuana use regulated the way liquor consumption is because I don't want doped up idiots operating vehicles and endangering people. You're right, the war on drugs has been a failure. Christ, most of the commercials on TV are for drugs now anyway, so we look more like we're dug protectionists. We just want a war on foreign made drugs because we want our citizens addicted to domestically made designer drugs. It's very comical, but no-holds barred legalization of marijuana is a bad thing.

Re:Good thing

[causality]

So in re marijuana, my concern is having streets full of doped up individuals. It'll look like China during the Opium Wars.

So the streets right now are full of drunk individuals? We have no laws now against things like "drunk in public" etc?

I at least want marijuana use regulated the way liquor consumption is because I don't want doped up idiots operating vehicles and endangering people.

Actual libertarian thought never attempts to divorce freedom from personal responsibility. You have the right to put anything into your body that you please ... until and unless you pose a threat to me by doing so. Then you are depriving me of my civil right to live without a threat to my safety, so now the government has legitimate grounds to stop you. Want to stay home and get high on whatever the hell you like? Fine by me. Want to get high on something and then drive? Now government has a good reason to stop you.

I think you somewhat fear marijuana because it's something of an unknown to you. Do the research and you'll find that very few drugs are as damaging to individuals or as destructive to society as alcohol. Only the hardest ones you can name, like crack or heroin, would even begin to approach the health problems, injuries and deaths directly and indirectly attributable to alcohol.

You're right, the war on drugs has been a failure.

Anyone who is willing to admit the facts of the matter will be forced to come to that conclusion. Determining that the War on (some) Drugs has been a total failure is very easy. Here's something harder: when we know based on hard fact that a policy is a complete failure and we insist on continuing to do it anyway, decade after decade, how do you fix the institutionalized insanity that makes this possible?

Christ, most of the commercials on TV are for drugs now anyway, so we look more like we're dug protectionists. We just want a war on foreign made drugs because we want our citizens addicted to domestically made designer drugs.

That's precisely why I refer to it as "the War on (some) Drugs". It's the drugs people might use without the blessing of an authority figure (such as the medical establishment) that the government can't stand. That's too independent, individualistic, and self-deterministic for them to tolerate. You're supposed to wait for an authority with credentials to pronounce for you what is good for you, like a good citizen. You're supposed to do that not because the authority is truly wise and respectable, but because men with guns (i.e. police) will make you suffer if you don't. Of course, they claim to have your best interests at heart...

It's very comical, but no-holds barred legalization of marijuana is a bad thing.

Look at places like Holland or increasingly, California. It isn't destroying their societies. It isn't murdering kittens and transforming everyone into savage beasts. The streets aren't flowing with blood. Do you want to know why? It's something of a secret, though it's a very open "secret": anybody, and I really do mean anybody, who wants to buy marijuana will be able to easily find it. It's absolutely everywhere. Anybody who wants to smoke it is already doing so. This is another fact you can easily verify with Google. As a matter of fact, they can't even keep drugs out of high-security prisons. Is it a shock that anyone in general society who wants them can obtain them?

The only difference decriminalization and legalization makes is that now those people don't have to worry so much about hiding it. That, in turn, might change their relationship with the government from an adversarial one where they face real suffering because of a "crime" that is not a crime and has no victim, to something more like reasonable respect. It would mean less tyranny in the world. It would mean we stop wasting so much money and ruining so many lives while providing a lucrative source of funding for organized crime. I'd like to see that.

Re:Good thing

[Keen Anthony]

I know this is Slashdot, but come on, you should have made the logical conclusion that I recognize the positive effect regulation has had on alcohol use in public spaces. I'm obviously for regulation of marijuana use, as I clearly said. I'm against unregulated use. That its use is currently widespread means nothing to me. There must be laws to limit what people can do while using marijuana just as there must be laws for alcohol consumption.

I'm fully aware of what marijuana does. I did the research, and I know people who require medical marijuana. I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I know enough about an issue through common sense and divine intervention that I can shape policy. If I did, I'd join the Tea Party, wouldn't I?

Netherlands does not give us a 1:1 model for how American society will look. American culture is very different. My concern isn't violent marijuana crimes. Generally speaking, are there any? I can't imagine any dealer being willing to kill or die over a joint -- yet another point in favor of legalization, actually. My only concern is general legality. I'd like something tempered and regulated. And frankly, that's how it will have to go, because you're not going to get an overnight switch to spliff dispensers in bars.

Re:Good thing

[tehcyder]

Which is why I've never liked the word "conservative". I'm registered Republican and yet want to repeal the Patriot Act, shrink government to the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and legalize marijuana, cocaine, et cetera. I can hardly be called conservative, despite people's attempts to attach it to me

When you shrink elected government, you mainly just give more power to big, unelected, unrepresentative, short-termist, self-centred corporations.

The essence of conservatism is that it wants to leave power in the hands of the rich few (traditionally landowners, but nowadays just anyone rich enough to be inthe club) and deny power to the majority. Historically, this was mixed up with religious/moral conservatism, but as religion is now a minority interest it doesn't really matter.

What remains at the heart of conservatism is the belief that a rich minority should rule for the good of the ordinary people.

Re:Good thing

[tehcyder]

Obama is almost as far left as politicians like Mao or Lenin.

If this wasn't slashdot I would assume you were joking.

An anarchist would lie on the far right.

Your lack of undersstanding of basic political philosophy is breathtaking.

Re:Good thing

[tehcyder]

That's one of the beauties of an open, capitalistic market: It is self-correcting with time.

Self-correction down to the level of US TV is not a good thing.

Re:Good thing

[tehcyder]

I have never heard of any of them.

Why was this declaration of ignorance modded as "insightful"?

Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[geek]

Move along, nothing to see. Seriously, don't like what Murdoch is doing? Click elsewhere. This isn't rocket science.

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like. The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational. No one is forcing you to watch/read. Get the fuck over it.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Calydor]

That would work if this was just being done by some out-in-the-sticks local newspaper.

Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things. Simply ignoring him is not going to change that one bit.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Microlith]

Until he streams lobbyists into Congress and starts burning cash on attack ads. Remember, in America men like Murdoch have more rights and influence with the government than you do. The Supreme Court said so.

Murdoch and the rest of the Media industry don't like the two-way, interactive nature of the web. They hate it, in fact, because it lets people ignore them.

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like.

I know, it's so easy to jump into the business of being a satellite media service company. Real easy.

The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational.

Nah, Murdoch deserves all the shit he catches. I'm sure he'd not blink at killing everything you like about the internet if it served him in some way.

No one is forcing you to watch/read.

Of course not, but it's a shit deal to have only the options of "Murdoch controlled media" and "nothing," which is really how he wants it.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Zocalo]

Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things.

Yes, because his attempts to use his wealth, influence and political power to get everyone else in the News business to erect a pay wall in front of their websites is working out really well. So well, in fact, that he's even stopped going on about it himself lately after his own trial ended in a dramatic fall in readership.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things

If I accept your viewpoint, then I fear Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Steve Burke (NBC-comcast's new CEO) more than murdoch.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

You sound like Luddites. Like this quote from the article:

"To a certain extent this is all reminiscent of the furore in the sea-change from practical to digital newspaper production in London's Wapping in the early 1980s, engendering protracted but ultimately futile strikes from the pre-digital technicians who were made jobless by new, computerised automation of magazine and newspaper production."

You cannot stop progress simple because you don't like it. The horsewhip makers were laid-off when cars took over, and so too were these pre-digital technicians.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Calydor]

The first two have no inherent interest in shaping the internet into a pure 'consume, consume, consume' form. Not familiar with Steve Burke so not going to comment on him.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>Murdoch is rich and has influence. He has the political power to set a precedent for how to do things

If I accept your viewpoint, then I fear Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Steve Burke (NBC-comcast's new CEO) more than murdoch.

You should!

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[jonbryce]

Who cares about satellite media? The future of tv is internet based video on demand.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have no inherent interest in shaping the internet into a pure 'consume, consume, consume' form.

(gives poster odd look)
What???

>>>Not familiar with Steve Burke so not going to comment on him.

Me neither but I know Comcast (or more properly: Comsucks). I can see the previous acts he did as COO, and now he'll be CEO of the new maerged company.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[interkin3tic]

The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational. No one is forcing you to watch/read. Get the fuck over it.

If an idiot is standing on the street corner spewing lies and no one listens to him, then you can just ignore it and it's not a problem. If a significant portion of your country and voters start believing in it, that's mainly a problem with your country, yes, but it's no longer in the realm of "just ignore it and it won't be a problem." Murdoch's lies are affecting US policy. He's having a substantial impact, increasing partisan politics, preventing Washington from doing -anything-, encouraging ignorance, pushing us towards more of a police state, and distracting people while our rights get sold to corporations.

I'll get the fuck over it when he's dead along with his whole propaganda machine, when most people who watch fox news and believe the BS voluntarily give up the right to vote, when Washington has fixed every problem they've created, and when large corporations stop trying to neuter the internet.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just bullshit! If he could do what you say he would have already. The fact that he hasn't proves that he can't.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[hedwards]

Except that if that Murdoch bought media outlets even though it was completely illegal for him as a foreign citizen to own them and has pushed for less and less diversity in ownership ever since.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[xwizbt]

How did he become this rich? How did he attain this wealth? What is wrong with a guy who attained this level of wealth and power using it?

What if somewhere along the line, people stopped thinking for themselves and started following any messiah who strayed into their path? What if that was Murdoch?

What if people began to think for themselves? What if people realised that the only real choice they have is to think or not to think? What then?

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[digitig]

You sound like Luddites. Like this quote from the article:

"To a certain extent this is all reminiscent of the furore in the sea-change from practical to digital newspaper production in London's Wapping in the early 1980s, engendering protracted but ultimately futile strikes from the pre-digital technicians who were made jobless by new, computerised automation of magazine and newspaper production."

You cannot stop progress simple because you don't like it. The horsewhip makers were laid-off when cars took over, and so too were these pre-digital technicians.

So lets get this straight. Reducing the internet to the type of linear media that existed before the web is "progress" that cannot be stopped. Continuing to take advantage of the non-linear nature of the web and building on it is "Luddite". Er, well, keep taking the dried frog pills.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

No. Adding video interviews because more-and-more people are no longer stuck on dialup - That is the progress.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

Murdoch's lies are affecting US policy. He's having a substantial impact, increasing partisan politics, preventing Washington from doing -anything-, encouraging ignorance, pushing us towards more of a police state, and distracting people while our rights get sold to corporations.

You mention "Murdoch" but I think "Obama" better fits your description. Or "Pelosi". In just 3 and a half years of a Democrat-run Congress we have:

- increased our national deficit from 1/2 trillion to 1.5 trillion per year
- renewed the Patriot Act, and also expanded it with new spying powers
- taken away Citizens of a Member State ability to self-police/arrest criminals (arizona)
- okay'd a single man (whoever is current president) having a kill switch to interrupt free speech on the net
-
- taken away the right to buy health insurance (or be fined if you choose not to)
- given police power to track people via GPS on cars
- redefined cell companies as "financial companies" enabling the FBI to obtain your cellphone bills/records without requiring a warrant (just passed last month)

I'll stop there because you probably assume I'm lying to you, but it's all true. '
Just look-up what Congress did in 2007,8,9, and 10. You fear Murdoch?
I fear the US Congress (D) more.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

>>>when most people who watch fox news and believe the BS voluntarily give up the right to vote

You believe the shit on democrat-leaning MSNBC. How are you any better? (rolls eyes) I can't believe you'd even suggest such an anti-democratic idea as saying FOX News viewers should not be allowed to vote. Here's a thought: Maybe you could do what FDR did in the 40s and round-up the Americans you don't like, and send them to concentration camps? That's how FDR stopped people from voting, simple because they had asian grandparents or parents.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[voidstin]

Thank you for proving the parent's point.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like. The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational. No one is forcing you to watch/read. Get the fuck over it.

No you can't. The government will stop you, because it was elected on the back of the Murdoch press, just as the British government is currently committed to demolishing BSkyB's only real competitor in the British market.

You are forced to watch/read if you want to access the content that same government has signed over exclusively to Murdoch outlets.

You are staggeringly naive, grow the fuck up.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[interkin3tic]

As usual, I disagree with both of your posts (Really? Two?) but it sounds like we should be able to agree that
1. There can be more than one bad guy
2. Murdoch is more of a "bad guy" than a good guy
3. The democratic congress has not done that great of a job, for various reasons
4. Obama extending the patriot act was bad

Also, for the record, I didn't imply Fox news viewers shouldn't be allowed to vote. While I think it would be good if they voluntarily gave up the right to vote, that's not something that I would ever force, or even ask them to do.

I trust you see the difference, and that since you're not running for office against me you won't intentionally fail to make the distinction.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[ickleberry]

Free to air (not BSkyB) satellite has a few decent channels on it over on this side of the pond. With a PVR or with a tuner card you can collect a shitload of movies without wasting valuable bandwidth.

Really all the IPTV stuff is ideally suited to satellite for its effortless multicasting abilities. If instead of 200+ TV channels a satellite broadcasted continuously the top 200 or so torrents on TPB it would go a long way towards freeing up the tubes. If the satellite has any free bandwidth you could use it to download large files that other users are also trying to download. I believe such a system already exits for multicast file downloads but its not very widely used - bittorrent integration with this would be great.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[blackraven14250]

It isn't for a lack of trying.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

Ya know - it helps if you read the actual bills your Democrat Congress passes.

For example the ability of the FBI to demand copies of your cellphone bills/locations without warrant? It's in the recently-passed Financial Reform bill. I've seen the language in the bill myself.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

The left wing mods are out in force tonight. This gets modded Off Topic while some kook claiming that Murdoch is going to get him killed gets modded Interesting. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1824512&cid=33920268

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[turkeyfish]

Like most rich people, he inherited his father's newspaper business. He really began to make his money when he realized he could extort money from politicians. Ever notice how nice republicans are to him and how he has democrats quaking in the shoes? The former, he owns like pets, the later are too afraid to say anything.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[apoc.famine]

Well, it seems the rest haven't heard how badly it failed - my hometown newspaper had an ad-supported online edition for years and years. A week or so ago they paywalled it.

I'm wondering how long it will take them to realize that only a dozen or so people visit their website every day now. It's not a large paper, and the bulk of their readership are 50+. If they're going to paywall, they might as well just get off the internet. I highly doubt it's worth keeping an internet presence for the money generated by 1 & 7 day subscriptions.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep on shifting those goalposts, son. You might even make a coherent argument eventually.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[volmtech]

So thirty years ago when I decided that President Carter was a tool I was channeling propaganda beamed from the future to my brain from the then non-existent Fox news channel?

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is video 'better' than text? or vice versa? there's a difference between choosing appropriately and choosing one for the sake of control freakery. What if slashdot used ad laden videos instead of text?

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[dbIII]

He's a US citizen now and has been for a long time. Oddly enough Australia changed it's foreign media ownership laws just to accommodate Rupert Murdoch's change of citizenship.
The major difference between Murdoch and Gates, Jobs et al is the use of influence. If Gates or Jobs don't like a government you'll probably never hear about it, but when Murdoch doesn't like a government you will not see a single positive story about them from any of his news outlets.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

This reads like a bad democrat party press release. To make it sound like professional propaganda, you need to add more newspeak and double entendre. Finish it with an ironic statement that's meant to sound intelligent but really proves just how idiotic said party is. Make it soundbiteable if possible for added points.

Btw, obama voted for PATRIOT too you know. Say hi to your new boss, same as the old one.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[JustAClam]

Except it doesn't prove the parent's point...Here's why:

With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now has deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office. In other words, they work for him...

Murdoch has contributed 1.25 million dollars to the Republican governor's assocation, and 1 million the the U.S. "Chamber of Commerce". All this money is going into campaign contributions to buy influence.

Anyone in their right mind should be concerned about the impact of donations of this size on the right OR the left. When donors give this much money, they have undue influence on the recipients of their donations. Even if you don't mind that Murdoch gives this much money to the candidates he gives it to, you might not be as happy when George Soros does the same. Or vice-versa.

Not an irrational concern at all, IMO

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Alioth]

Bad news, his son James Murdoch is only in his 30s, is cast from the same mould, and is already a high ranking executive in his father's business. It's obvious he's being groomed to take over the empire. When Rupert dies, James will continue in much the same manner. Indeed, it was James Murdoch who is to blame for getting Rupert interested in the internet in the first place. News Corporation will probably get worse, not better, with respect to what they want to do with the net when Rupert carks it.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty hard to complete with Rupert. When the UK government thinks they can't get elected without his support, Rupe wields lots of power, which he uses to make Rupe richer. If you think that includes making things easier for competitors, you'd be wrong.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, Apple's iPads and iPhones and iPods are about media production, not consumption...

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, go ahead and ignore the following years: 2001-2006.

You know, all the ones where the Republicans (a.k.a. the founders of the PATRIOT act) had COMPLETE control and created the circumstances that lead up to all the recent problems. Go ahead and ignore those, because clearly it's just the Democrats we need to fear.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[sempir]

Serves you right for allowing a "bloody Australian"into your country!

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama should take him out with a stealth force, and nationalize the Fox network, merge its facilities with PBS. seriously. He is a national security risk and a terrorist who has declared war against our way of life. death is too good for him, though. lock him in a 6x12 cell with a video feed determined by Michael Moore, Spike Lee and Arianna Huffington.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

What???

99.9% of the iPhone and iPod users I see around me are consuming video or music (some even make calls but not often). That's consumption of what the media corporations are putting out.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Please see the parent's post, the post I responded to, in particular his claim that Steve jobs has not interest in shaping the Internet into a "consume, consume, consume" form. Then see the dictionary entry for the word "sarcasm".

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[commodore64_love]

In just 3 and a half years of a Democrat-run Congress we have:

- increased our national deficit from 1/2 trillion to 1.5 trillion per year
- renewed the Patriot Act, and also expanded it with new spying powers
- taken away Citizens of a Member State ability to self-police/arrest criminals (arizona)
- okay'd a single man (whoever is current president) having a kill switch to interrupt free speech on the net
-
- taken away the right to buy health insurance (or be fined if you choose not to)
- given police power to track people via GPS on cars
- redefined cell companies as "financial companies" enabling the FBI to obtain your cellphone bills/records without requiring a warrant (just passed last month)

You fear Mr. Murdoch?
I fear the Congress(D) more.

Re:Nothing but a Murdoch hit piece.

[tehcyder]

Hell you can even make a competitor to BSkyB if you like.

Indeed, and in Victorian London everyone was free to dine at the Ritz.

All Paths Are Taken

[SuperKendall]

The increase in the use of paginated content and the proliferation of video over transcribed interviews are, the author argues, part of a tidal shift from a browsable internet experience to a linear one

And the rise of features like Safari Reader (and Firefox equivalent from which it was born), along with video heavily annotated and searchable also mean the web is moving to a totally non-linear, take it as you please kind of mechanism.

Both things are true, the web can and will take all possible paths. If people do not like confinement than overly narrow paths will grow dusty with disuse over time, but even if they mostly like it the other paths will remain for those that want to take them.

I never did see the point in freaking out about any super-powerful titan "taking over the web" since there is no web to take over, there's just islands that people can build up as high as they like in order to entice people to visit.

Re:All Paths Are Taken

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Especially the video section.

Youtube is heavily annotated, from both manual annotations to automatic speech parsing algorithms, language translation getting better all the time, and even some basic structure recognition for content in video.
This is only Youtube, admittedly, but no doubt in the years that it will take for video to become the centerpiece of online content, this stuff will be trivial to implement for the average person.

And as you said, nobody will ever really take over the web, even Google.
Google have a really high chance of snuffing it by years end pretty damn easily if they pulled some wrong moves out of that magic hat. Who knows, they could pull out the bomb.
As does any other company, more so at this moment in time if they venture in to high-bandwidth content like video.

All i can say is i have cancelled my Sky subscription anyway. I only used it for a small handful of channels, all which have slowly rotted in to awfulness over the past year, especially Sky1. The tool in control of that has ruined the channel for me now.
And if this goes through, i certainly wouldn't want to give any of those people any money.

I'm just glad there are actual competitors to Sky now. Whether it is Virgin, FreeSat, BT Vision, even Freeview, or the many others, Sky is slowly losing ground.
Just a shame that all the content producers on so many of the independent channels are going to suffer the most in this. Tough business...

Re:All Paths Are Taken

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

I never did see the point in freaking out about any super-powerful titan "taking over the web" since there is no web to take over, there's just islands that people can build up as high as they like in order to entice people to visit.

If anything these bloggers who cry wolf let us know there's a problem, even if the problem isn't critical. Malthusian overpopulation didn't happen, but it helped keep world population from rising much higher than it is now.

Did I read a different article?

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

Where is the discussion about why the internet can't kill classic TV? The article started out worrying about Rupert Murdoch's increasing empire, and then devolved into a "everything I hate about the internet" speech. In particular, how video interviews are inferior to the printed word, because they're harder to search, you can't pick just the bit you want to read, and you can't "space out" while watching it.

The author seems to think all the "popular" sites will squeeze out the "old school" content, because if they don't join in the "linearized" content, they can't monetize their content. Hopefully, not everyone will feel a need to monetize what they provide, and we'll be able to share in people's passions, not just their livelihood. I may not like what you're selling me, but I'll be interested in what interests you, and Rupert Murdoch can't have that.

Re:Did I read a different article?

[turkeyfish]

Thats why after Murdoch owns about 85% of all media companies, he plans to turn his attention to the internet service providers, so that he can charge extra for sites people like by putting them in premium tiered space that requires a $350-$400 monthly charge to access them. Oh yes, in principle you will be able to get them for "free" as you do now, but in reality the lower/cheaper tier will be made so slow that you won't be able to load a page in less than a minute.

Re:Did I read a different article?

[Angst Badger]

Hopefully, not everyone will feel a need to monetize what they provide, and we'll be able to share in people's passions, not just their livelihood. I may not like what you're selling me, but I'll be interested in what interests you, and Rupert Murdoch can't have that.

Amen. I seldom visit "commercial" sites, save for advertising-supported blogs like this one. If you spend a lot of time looking at websites that are run by media conglomerates with their roots (and the bulk of their profits) in television, film, music, and print, you can't really claim surprise when the people running those sites try to make them more like the rest of their empires. In other words, if what you're interested in can only be produced by gigantic corporations, then you're going to have to dance to their tune. There's nothing special about the web in that respect.

That said, the one area where the media conglomerates are a threat to the 99.9% of content that isn't cranked out by them is net neutrality. That's something to get upset (and take action) about. What Rupert Murdoch is doing with his own content isn't really much of an issue unless you can't enjoy yourself without Rupert Murdoch's output. And if that's the case, you need to get out more. And possibly seek therapy.

Meaningless peice

[Sycraft-fu]

While I agree that maybe big media companies would like to make the web a linear experience, they can't. Reason is the web is too large to control. The barrier or entry is extremely low. As such there are sites all over the damn place, that do whatever they please. There is just no way for a media company to control all this. They can take everything they control and make it suck, but all that'll do is make people go elsewhere.

Because of the distributed, low cost nature of the web it is just not really possible for one group to control it. With TV, sure they can do that to a large degree. Not only are TV programs inherently linear, but running a TV station is expensive. It isn't like someone can say "Ya I think I'll set one up." Even if you had a TV station, you have to deal with contracts to get on the distributors, and then of course produce content people want.

None of that is a problem with the web, other than content. You can get a website for $10/month or less with a reasonable host, and probably free if you sniff around a bit. That's all it takes and your site is now on the same level with every other, there is no barriers for people to get to it. The only question then is producing things people want to see. Also people like some extremely cheap things on the web. Look at Maddox's page. It is nothing but his writings and drawing. No big budget productions, nothing fancy, but people like it.

That is just an environment big media can't control. This goes double since the closest things to gate keepers there are is search engines, and they are run by companies way bigger than big media. Fox isn't going to scare Google or Microsoft. They'll keep running their search how they want.

I'm not at all concerned. The web will continue to be a massive collection of any and everything. Different people/groups/companies can make parts of the web that are however they like, and as many people are as interested can go and enjoy it. Maybe some people want a real locked down, linear web experience and if Fox provides one they may enjoy it. But don't worry about them forcing it on everyone, they just don't have the ability.

Re:Meaningless peice

[s0litaire]

Until 2 tier access comes into play and "Net Neutrality" goes out the window then you'll be stuck with what ever "Howling Mad" Murdoch thinks you need to see...

Re:Meaningless peice

[cranigus]

I was going to say something similar. This is the media equivalent of my mom printing out her emails.

Re:Meaningless peice

[CodeBuster]

Until 2 tier access comes into play and "Net Neutrality" goes out the window

Precisely. The reason why TV is full of crap these days is the "channelization" of content into pre-packaged streams selected by those running the cable and satellite networks and the content providers. This oligopoly power over the TV content markets gives them the ability to choose what people see while at the same time preventing effective competition. Even Steve Jobs, when presenting the Apple TV as a "hobby", acknowledged the difficulties of breaking into and being disruptive in the media business, regardless of new technologies. The package deals and lock-in agreements associated with cable and satellite networks make any real innovations extremely difficult.

Re:Meaningless peice

[monkyyy]

i wouldn't be to worried wire is cheap, a 2nd internet could be easily made if everyone who is completely dependent on it gave 100 bucks

Re:Meaningless peice

[Anonymous Coward]

You can make your own website and it can be really popular.
Until you insult the US and it cuts off your funding:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/14/2220209/Wikileaks-Donations-Account-Shut-Down

The Internet is not as free as you think it is.

Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[tepples]

Seriously, don't like what Murdoch is doing? Click elsewhere.

Even if you don't like it, there are enough other people who like it that Mr. Murdoch has gained influence over countries. I don't like what Mr. Murdoch is doing to U.S. politics by having built the Tea Party protests into a nationwide movement, but FOX News Channel has attracted enough people to this reactionary movement that it has a significant chance of setting policy that can cause me to be imprisoned or die despite my vote against it.

Re:Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[KingFrog]

Well, you've finally figured it out. The REAL purpose of everything that happens is to cause you to be imprisoned. Can someone mod him "Funny" or "Dangerously deluded" and get it over with?

Re:Sorry, Murdoch hater, you've been outvoted.

[tepples]

The REAL purpose of everything that happens is to cause you to be imprisoned.

Changes to the law cause people who follow the old law to go to jail for not following the new law.

Who cares?

[commodore64_love]

As with the mechanical vs. real horses, the ultimate choice will be left to the consumer, and either Mr. Murdoch will be right and win, or he will be wrong and go out of business.

It's the ultimate in democracy - people voting with their dollars what kind of web they want to see.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume people cannot be influenced by throwing enough money at them (in the form of bought laws, marketing, extermination of competing content, etc.) to do as big corporations want them to.

With enough money, they could easily achieve a TV-like Internet, e.g. lobby for laws that make the barrier of entry too high for anybody but big corporations (in Germany some lobbied for TV-like licenses for video streams) or simply deprioritise everybody who doesn't pay protectio...I mean priority-transport-fees or use continue to abuse patent and copyright laws to sue non-desirables into oblivion.

Videos on websites...

[Bert64]

I hate it when i go to read a news story, or a howto or something else online and it's only available in video form...

Especially technical guides, where a howto would let me cut and paste but a video won't...

Re:Videos on websites...

[PatPending]

As someone already posted, "Youtube is heavily annotated, from both manual annotations to automatic speech parsing algorithms, language translation getting better all the time, and even some basic structure recognition for content in video."

It's only a matter of time until this is common place everywhere there's a video posted on-line. (Perhaps as simple as a browser plug-in.)

Meanwhile, may I suggest you stop "hating it" and do something about it--such as contacting the author of the video, asking for a written "how-to" to accompany his videos in the future?

Re:Videos on websites...

[noidentity]

What I hate worse is the occasional time I actually fall for watchin the video, and then regret the 10 minutes I wasted. Now I just skip all video, period.

Re:Videos on websites...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, may I suggest you stop "hating it" and do something about it--such as contacting the author of the video, asking for a written "how-to" to accompany his videos in the future?

You'd think such an obvious idea would not require a special request..

Videos vs Text

[Thyamine]

I can agree with the complaints about some of this at least. I hate when I go to read an article and instead its a video piece/interview/etc about the topic. I can't just open it and read at my discretion, not to mention how almost every video link seems to start with some commercial. Sure, you need to make money, but you just lost any interest I have. I do fear that this will become what the web is. I also can't be doing much else, I have to stop and engage directly with the video instead of opening interesting sounding articles that I can peruse anytime I want. I suppose I could re-watch the video or pause/rewind/play but that's not what I'm after.

Re:Videos vs Text

[Phurge]

totally agree. plus a video usually takes two minutes to tell me something I could read in 20 seconds.

Re:Videos vs Text

[winwar]

"plus a video usually takes two minutes to tell me something I could read in 20 seconds."

This is why I really hate videos. Easy for them. A pain in the ass for me.

Say "Show me the SRT plz"

[tepples]

I hate it when i go to read a news story, or a howto or something else online and it's only available in video form

Open a help ticket and say your hard-of-hearing family member couldn't enjoy the video or the advertisement before it due to lack of SRT captions. If your country has a disability discrimination act, and you have a lawyer in the family, you can probably push this even harder.

Re:Say "Show me the SRT plz"

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this could work if you don't mind TAKING NOTES while watching. Video, audio, text are all tools. Used appropriately they're great. Forcing the use of one for the sole purpose of slowing people down long enough to force them to watch ads like it's 1960s TV is obnoxious to tbe honest.

Videos untranscribed

[CODiNE]

The increase in the use of paginated content and the proliferation of video over transcribed interviews

Sucks when you're deaf. Guess I should do what the blind groups have done and sue everyone til they listen.

Re:Videos untranscribed

[jonbryce]

You don't even need to be deaf, you just need to be browsing with the speaker on mute because you are at work.

i doubt it will happen to the entire WWW

[FudRucker]

maybe to Murdock's websites, but not everything on the net, but if it does it would give me a good excuse to cancel my internet subscription, i have plenty i can do on a PC for years without the internet, besides i have a library of books i could spend my free time reading

Internet killed the radio star

[bigato]

TV didn't kill radio, only made it less important. Now that internet has come, it didn't kill tv yet. But internet now has a share of the people's time. So, tv share is smaller. In Brazil we heard this year that this is the first time in history that internet audience is bigger than tv's. But people's time is limited, and I wonder how many of you still listen to radio. Not so many as ten years ago. Here at my home we don't have a tv anymore. Internet didn't kill tv, as tv didn't kill radio. But maybe the next step in evolution of information exchange WILL kill TV, as radio is now almost dead because of internet. I think TORRENTS are going to kill TV.

Re:Internet killed the radio star

[monkyyy]

im sorry but books havnt been killed by newspaper, tv, internet, ebooks, or torrents yet..... tv still has a long way to go

Re:Internet killed the radio star

[Alioth]

Radio will never die, I listen to considerably more radio than I do watch TV. Radio will outlive TV.

Why?

You can't watch TV while driving your car. You have to dedicate time to watching TV because it needs 100% of your attention to be watched. But you can listen to the radio while driving a car, while writing code, while fiddling with the engine of a motorcycle in the workshop, while working on a building etc.

You can't browse the web either while your hands are occupied with any of these tasks.

Re:Internet killed the radio star

[captjc]

You have to dedicate time to watching TV because it needs 100% of your attention to be watched. But you can listen to the radio while driving a car, while writing code, while fiddling with the engine of a motorcycle in the workshop, while working on a building etc.

In the last 10 years, prime-time TV has went through a bit of a resurgence. TV shows have payed more attention to writing, acting, and production value. Now that shows can be watched on demand via the web, DVDs, and DVRs, episodic shows are becoming less relevant and serialized shows are taking the spotlight. It is starting to become assumed that most of the audience has seen previous episodes (maybe not all or even the last episode, but are at least familiar with the overall plot and characters). Prime-time TV now has a luxury that other times don't have, People actually "watch" it.

There was a commentary from the DVD release of "Police Squad" by the Zucker and Abrahams team who made the show. They said that one of the biggest secrets in TV is that nobody actually "watches" TV shows. People turn on the TV and they do other things. The purpose of a laugh track wasn't so much to tell stupid people that something was a joke but to alert people to look at the screen because something funny is happening. Within the last few years as I went through college, discovered podcasts, and acquired a disposable income for DVDs and music, I haven't turned on the TV except for Video Games and the occasional local news and weather. Before that I had the TV on all the time. It served as background noise and quick distractions while I was doing other stuff. My less tech-savy family members still have the TV on constantly as background for cooking, internet, whatever. As for the radio, I only choose to listen to it in the car. It also background at work, but that isn't so much a choice as what happens to be pumped through the overhead speakers.

While I agree that radio is the most accepted option in cars and and the workplace, It is also necessary to separate the content from the medium. Once internet connectivity is ubiquitous, radio and TV as a medium will both die (which one will live longer will become moot). Radio and TV content will just be broadcast via the internet both as live and on demand. People will still listen to audio in the car and work and watch or just listen to video in their free time. In this case neither will die so much as just evolve.

Re:Internet killed the radio star

[bigato]

im sorry but books havnt been killed by...

Are you sure? Seriously, of course you are right, books havent been "killed", but most people don't ready any book these days. I bet it has something to do with all these new media that exists today.

14 years too late

[hessian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Sorry, internet: this is your new audience.

Their purchasing determines what is profitable on the internet.

Their attention span determines the type of information that will be profitable.

You, the old school user, are maybe 1% of the net. You are irrelevant except as a niche market.

They are comfortable with TV, "rides" and planned, advertising-funded adventures in alternate realities to distract from their depressing existences as corporate serfs.

They (or rather, what they will buy) will determine the content of the internet. Not you.

What do they like?

* Television
* Fast food
* Coca-Cola
* Movies like X-Men
* Disco
* Corn dogs

That is your future, internet. You are only ruled by the nerds at night.

Re:14 years too late

[ScrewMaster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Sorry, internet: this is your new audience.

Their purchasing determines what is profitable on the internet.

Their attention span determines the type of information that will be profitable.

You, the old school user, are maybe 1% of the net. You are irrelevant except as a niche market.

They are comfortable with TV, "rides" and planned, advertising-funded adventures in alternate realities to distract from their depressing existences as corporate serfs.

They (or rather, what they will buy) will determine the content of the internet. Not you.

What do they like?

* Television * Fast food * Coca-Cola * Movies like X-Men * Disco * Corn dogs

That is your future, internet. You are only ruled by the nerds at night.

Soma! Soma! Soma! Soma! Soma!

Re:14 years too late

[FroBugg]

Are these the same kids that just won't get off your lawn?

Re:14 years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, so that's where 4chan's concept of Newfag Summer came from.

Re:14 years too late

[Larryish]

Hellz yeah BOYYYYEEE!!!!

We ownz da night, muthafukka!

Nerds is da new gangstas, ya Digg?

Re:14 years too late

[Alex Belits]

That's actually an interesting observation. Originally it was expected that in September hordes of newbies will get their Internet access at school and start posting inane things until either novelty wears off or sufficient amount of clue is obtained.

Now it's supposedly the other way around, kids on summer vacations flood 4chan with [even more than usual] idiotic remarks.

Re:14 years too late

[adolf]

I used to run a BBS. I remember both when September never ended (at least get your fucking link right, hessian), and when Gopher was useful and current. My first proper exposure to Usenet was a local BBS running Waffle, which pulled news down using dialup UUCP. I remember discussions about the whole of Usenet beginning to exceed the bandwidth of what a v.32bis modem could do in 24 hours.

I have done SLIP connections to ISPs with MS-DOS before there there were local ISPs, while Linux was a wet dream, and experienced the pain of the phone bill that happened after a few nights of falling asleep waiting for an FTP to finish over a v.32, 9600bps dialup to somewhere half-way across the US.

I'm only 31 right now, so I guess I started young.

Meanwhile: I like television, fast food, Coca-Cola, movies like X-men, disco (or at least some modern-ish stuff with disco roots), and corn dogs. I liked these things (as applicable) back then, too.

Please tell me, Grand Pubah: Should I hand in my Geek Card, or should you get off of my lawn?

Re:14 years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kinda funny that "Elitism" is mentioned in the See Also section of the article you linked ;)

I was born in 1985. My ex-gf was born in 1990. The first consumer ADSL plans in Germany were offered by the Deutsche Telekom in 1999. When she was nine years old. We barely know what it's like to live without internet access. Today's teenagers even less so: they grow up with this stuff. They watch videos on YouTube, share their statuses on Facebook Mobile and listen to music on LastFM. Most of the people I know don't even have a TV at home, and when they do, they only switch it on when they want to watch certain show they like. It's completely natural for us/them to selectively consume media and I think it will be very difficult change that behaviour (especially if it was picked up at a young age).

Re:14 years too late

[Anonymous Coward]

That is your future, internet. You are only ruled by the nerds at night.

Take heart friend. It's always night time somewhere...

it's the author that's "missing the point"

[PJ6]

"Locking down" information is like trying to make water not be wet. Also, "taking away choice" on the internet is a great way to get completely ignored.

Mechanical horses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Current worries among publishing houses that magazines and newspapers will succumb to the digital written word on the internet are perhaps analogous to Victorian fears about mechanical horses taking over from real horses in the drawing of carriages

I don't get it. Could you please provide a car analogy?

Re:Mechanical horses?

[scottrocket]

"Victorian fears about mechanical horses taking over from real horses in the drawing of carriages."

And off-road transport has never been more fun...that's the internet. Anywhere you want to go, 24/7, & no 18 minute EAS right in the middle of my HBO program for which I paid extra & is one of the many reasons I am getting rid of cable all together. (Entity x) bless Archive.org. Kind of a weak car analogy, though.:(

stupidest fucking premise I've seen in a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

stupidest fucking premise I've seen in a long time

Don't panic

[Arancaytar]

I agree that Rupert Murdoch is one of the biggest dickwads in media outside conservative talkshows, but this article is exaggerating the danger.

Murdoch does not have a monopoly over internet news media by a long shot, and the unpopular decisions he has made (such as paywalls) are costing his companies market power.

If Murdoch tries to turn internet news into television, the internet will not become television; rather, Murdoch's internet news companies will compete with Murdoch's television networks.

Re:Don't panic

[dbIII]

I think the paywalls are just a tactic in his efforts to get governments to pull the legal rug out from under Google so that he can get to some of that advertising money. He hasn't really made any money from newspapers in the last decade and probably made more money selling a Chinese cable TV network earlier this year than all of his newspapers are worth put together.
One theory is he keeps his newspapers because they are a good tool for political influence. He certainly uses them that way - the "Australian" daily newspaper has been like a blunt instrument striking the head of the current Australian government for a couple of years now.

The Web as TV?

[PPH]

I'll believe that when I see Slashdot lose vertical hold.

You kids who don't understand that, stay off my lawn!

Re:The Web as TV?

[ScrewMaster]

I'll believe that when I see Slashdot lose vertical hold.

You kids who don't understand that, stay off my lawn!

Murdoch: We control the vertical. We control the horizontal.

Re:The Web as TV?

[Rod Beauvex]

They aren't gonna make a couch potato out of me.

Japan's Golfcart & Exotic philosophy != car ch

[sethstorm]

You would be right, except for the fact that it's not self-correcting or a market. There's more choice for news than there is for car designs(thanks to the bland "global platform" cars). I can get CNN, MSNBC, and flip to Murdoch's "news" channel on occasion; then I can go read/view/create actual news elsewhere.

Detroit's Big Three do make fine large cars, available to all people. They don't make it a point to hand you a blinged-out golfcart with a turbo for anything under $20k.
When the rest of the world can start making less of the bland "global cars" and make some affordable-to-all RWD behemoths, then you would have a point. In the USA, we don't reserve large & powerful cars for royalty, yet. We let everyone have the fun.

The only thing Asia, Europe, and Central/South America have done for me is let me have a wider selection of Detroit metal, courtesy of irrational General Motors hate. For that, I thank Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Hyundai, Ssangyong, Renault, Citroen, Fiat, and the other manufacturers that think that only royalty get true choice.

Ya... I'm thinking no...

[Sycraft-fu]

Sorry but so far all this has been nothing but a geek scare story from what I've seen. My ISP has made no move, at all, to restrict or limit any kind of access to anything and shows no signs of wanting to since they rather like making their customers happy.

Also here's some news: Murdoch doesn't own the world. I know that he's a popular conspiracy target for "OMG he's controls the media!" but he really doesn't. Plenty of other companies out there who are not interested in playing ball.

Re:Ya... I'm thinking no...

[winwar]

"My ISP has made no move, at all, to restrict or limit any kind of access to anything and shows no signs of wanting to since they rather like making their customers happy."

So you have no download caps? No restrictions on what type of services you can run? Which is great. But I suspect that most do not. Not to mention the reluctance to even expand service.

"Also here's some news: Murdoch doesn't own the world."

True. But if he can make it work, others will follow. I'd rather it not start.

Whether it matters in the grand scheme of things, we'll see.

Re:Ya... I'm thinking no...

[Sycraft-fu]

No I don't because I elect to pay for professional/business service which allows for that. You'll find most ISPs offer that. They are happy to let you use more, you just need to pay.

However bandwidth caps are a far cry from content restrictions. Bandwidth caps are because you want cheap service. The way the Internet stays cheap is people share. The cost to give everyone truly, 100% dedicated bandwith would be prohibitive, and wasteful. Like at work, I have a blazingly fast connection. Gigabit to our switches, 10 gig to the core. I don't know what the current off campus bandwidth is but it is in the range of a gig to I1 and 2.4gig to I2. Net effect is downloads scream. Linux ISO torrents usually go at 15-20MBytes/sec or sometimes more. Things are just quick.

Reason that works though is sharing. When I'm done downloading what I need, my usage drops back down. If I used it continually, I'd get yelled at. See if we gave everyone just their dedicated share of bandwidth, we'd all get somewhere in the range of 300kbits of bandwidth. That is painfully slow these days.

So the reason ISPs want to limit your downloads is to give you fast access at a reasonable price. To do that, you have to be willing to share, which means not torrenting 24/7/365. Buy a higher class line if you want to do that.

Also from what I've seen, they've been plenty willing to expand. I got broadband back in late 1999. Then, 256k was all I could get. Next step up from that was fractional T1 at about a thousand a month. I can't remember what it cost, but around $70-80/month for a consumer connection. Few years later (2001-2002 or so) I had professional 640k broadband with static IPs. Cost me about $220/month. Few years after (2003-2004 or so) that I was able to get 4m/1m professional net with statics for about $180 or so. I've changed packages a few times so prices have gone up and down but since then I went to 10m/1m, 12m/1.5m, 20m/4m, and now 50m/5m (all professional) which costs me $156/month with statics.

So for less money ($64 in nominal dollars $111 in real dollars) I'm getting about 100x the download speed in about 1 decade. Seems like progress to me, and pretty good.

Nothing to See Here? Look Closer

[Blue Stone]

>The rampant Murdoch hatred is just so irrational.

Ahem, your ignorance is showing.

If only it was irrational, however his desire and ambition to dominate the various maouthpieces of the media plus his willingness to laud the politicians who chime with his views, and their subsequent fear of him (outlined rather concisely in the current UK issue of him taking over BskyB and politicians openly admitting their fear of pissing him off) make him a king-maker and fundementally a threat to the democratic process.

He and his ilk are a blight and an opposition to democracy because the power they wield far outweighs their number. They are not elected, merely rich. And whilst Murdoch is not the only evil in town in this regard, he, with his penchant for buying up media channels is a particular threat than many others can't hold a candle to.

You only have to look at the situation in the Uk with the Murdoch ownded News of the World and the influence it wielded with thMetropolitan Police in them delibertaely limiting the scope of an investigation into illegal phone hacking by the NotW to the NotW's advantage.

Murdoch and his organs are scourges on Western democracy the world over.

Re:Nothing to See Here? Look Closer

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded down by a Fox News viewer, I see.

We need to move beyond artificial scarcity

[Paul Fernhout]

My site on the problem: http://artificialscarcity.com/

Alternative solutions collected by me: http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives

Re:Japan's Golfcart & Exotic philosophy != car

[Pharmboy]

If you would have read the entire comment, I clearly stated "a few decades ago". As in the 1970s. Back when Detroit had a strong majority market share in the USA. And thanks to their arrogance then, they lost that lead to Japanese makers who have continued to carve up their once mighty empire. I wasn't talking about what YOU like, I was talking about the majority of people, which is obvious if you look at actual sales numbers. And by the way, most of the popular Toyota models sold in the US are actually made here in the US. Just not by the big 3 in Detroit.

i'm relieved

[turkeyfish]

to learn that when the republicans sweep back into power next month that the FBI won't be able to get that bill through congress. Republicans would never let it happen, right?

Re:i'm relieved

[genner]

to learn that when the republicans sweep back into power next month that the FBI won't be able to get that bill through congress. Republicans would never let it happen, right?

NO they won't. They'll kill the bill and replace it with something worse.

Re:i'm relieved

[commodore64_love]

The bill already PASSED you twits. The republican tried to stop it, but lacked the numbers. The Democrats simply outvoted them.

Re:i'm relieved

[causality]

The republican tried to stop it, but lacked the numbers.

That's the problem with the Republican party specifically and the two-party system in general. The Republicans are reasonable enough to try to stop bills like that one ... ... when they're in the minority. When they have the majority and all of the power that goes along with that, they start supporting bills like this one. My guess would be that there is an easy explanation for that: the majority party attracts most of the lobbyists. At any rate, this is a reoccurring pattern throughout history -- do you remember the "Contract with America" and how well they followed through on that? Oh, that's right, they didn't, and they had a million excuses where they should have had results.

I mention the Republicans here because the Democrats are a lot more up-front. Democrats are relatively open about their desire for large government and statist policy. If you vote Democrat and have at least two brain cells to rub together, then you know that statism is what you will get and you're not surprised when you get it. The Republicans, however, like to talk a good game about things like fiscal responsibility and freedom. Then they obtain a majority granting them the power to implement those things and we get ... the same old shit.

It's still the same old story: no one with a chance of getting elected actually wants to reduce the size and power of the federal government. Ron Paul is the only politician in Washington today I can think of who really wants to do that, and it's quite obvious the media and the political establishment doesn't like him, wants him to go away, and marginalizes him as much as possible. Yet I suspect Paul runs as a "Republican" because running as a third-party candidate would guarantee that he would never occupy a Congressional seat, as otherwise he has little in common with other Republicans who are actually in office.

It's getting to the point that this is an empire in decline and I'm looking for another, saner country to move to. If the USA wants to self-destruct by running itself into the ground and investing in profound mismanagement, I see no reason to go along for the ride.

F__k Ruppert Murdoch

[turkeyfish]

He F__ks everyone else.

Muroch's Expansion Plans

[turkeyfish]

After the BSkyB purchase, Murdoch plans to go on an acquisitions binge buying up The New York Times, Barrons, Comcast, Cox Communications, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC. After that he plans to focus on controlling at least 85% of internet bandwidth in all US markets, at which point he plans to push for 2 tiered service, a slow internet and a fast internet that will be reserved strictly for paying customers with $350/month minimums, with extra fees to be added for each mouse click. Republicans are already falling all over themselves to ease media-ownership restrictions in exchange for additional free political advertising.

You have to admit this guy knows how to make money.

There is a new book coming out

[Presto Vivace]

about Murdoch and his empire. Neil Chenowth of the Australian Financial Review is reported to be coming out with a book next spring.

Unless

[turkeyfish]

you buy up 80-90% of the ISP's. Then you get to be in charge.

Its only a step away from charging extra for your IP packets to be routed through News Corporation routers on its destination. Some ISP along the way says I won't pay and packets will have a way of getting lost.

/. you are to blame

[wen1454]

The web has been getting more linear for a long time. Greedy businessmen are only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the emphasis on recentness. The most recent articles are placed first creating a linear organization. Blogs, /., twitter, reddit are all part of this trend. In the past content was more likely to be organized hierarchically (e.g. most personal websites) or with the most recent comments first (message boards and newsgroups). The consequence of this trend is that now articles are only viewed and discussed for about a day after they are posted. In the past discussions would drag on for weeks and months (hence Godwin’s law), and 6 month old content on your website was as likely to be read as 1 day old content.

Re:/. you are to blame

[LordKaT]

Newsflash: new content more interesting than old. Businesses promote new content more heavily than old content. News @ 11.

Re:Japan's Golfcart & Exotic philosophy != car

[endymion.nz]

I hope you realise that the rest of the world mocks you for driving giant behemoth cars around. I've driven a few fast rear wheel drive Toyotas and Nissans.

They're light - most of them are under 1600kg, MANY of them are under 1300kg.

They have independant rear suspension since the late 70s - GM was still putting leaf springs on Corvettes up until the second most recent model.

Many have front double wishbone suspension - the Toyota Supras have double wishbone suspension front and rear.

Their motors are the double-overhead-cam type, often with variable valve duration. Does GM still use pushrods in the LS3? They did in the LS1 and 2.

So basically, I will take a 1983 Toyota Corolla GT-S, or a 1989 Nissan Skyline GTS-t, or a 1998 Toyota Supra JZA80 over any American car that I could not immediately swap for one of these. :)

Is CFB already an acronym for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

> tidal shift from a browsable internet experience to a linear one

Completely freakin' backwards?

What's wrong is the consequences

[dbIII]

What's wrong with it is him giving a speech in the UK about how the BBC is stifling free enterprise journalism and then the excellent BBC news website suddenly lost most of it's budget. He's also going around trying to convince governments to draft laws to make Google's web indexing illegal so he can nobble a competitor for advertising dollars.
He's trying to shape the net to his advantage and doesn't care if it breaks in the process. He's called the lot of us pirates and thieves just for reading things on secondary sources.

murdoch bought myspace

[Dan667]

pretty clear he does not understand the internet at all.

To end all privacy, content, neutrality issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Time will end all privacy, content, neutrality and censorship issues.

  Big content providers, advertisers, government, the RIAA and similar organisations will fight against it but eventually a web browser like application will be released that uses distributed protocols similar to encrypted bit torrent. The swarm will become the web server, individuals will be able to control their own privacy and publications.

  Personal storage is cheap and fiber is coming. Soon users will be inserting, modifying and publishing their own info directly from the desktop and it will be propagated through the swarm - the larger web will just be corporate, for banking and shopping.

  The mentioned groups are slowly pushing the users into a corner and making it more likely.

Interesting moderation

[Anonymous Coward]

So the response is moderated a troll but the original comment is interesting?

I find that fascinating. Proof that not all moderation is by liberals. :)

Re:Interesting moderation

[whoop]

Or, perhaps, it was moderated like that because it contains nothing substantive. A generic, "you Glenn Beck lover" jab should be considered insightful? He starts off asking a question, a good start, but doesn't back it up with examples or something to further discussion. That comment is no more useful than "You are poo."

It's happening. No more "long tail".

[Animats]

40% of Internet traffic now comes from the top 10 domains. Few people have personal web sites any more; that's all on Facebook. Businesses sell through Amazon Store or eBay. Entertainment goes out via the Steve Jobs Walled Garden of Pure Ideology paywall.

Between Steve Jobs, Rupert Murdoch, and Mark Zuckerberg, I'm worried.

Broadcast is 1:N, Internet is N:M

[crovira]

The broadcasters just don't seem to realize, or want to accept, that the internet overwhelms and subsumes them.

Its not that broadcasters don't have their place, they do, but its no more valid than any other IP source.

The disintegration started by cable television is fully realized through the internet.

Instead of the national broadcast service (think BBC, CBC, NHK, etc.) or the communication oligarchy (think ABC, CBS, NBC, Skye,) every IP address becomes a source for news/entertainment/focus/distraction ... whatever.

Your power to distract and disrupt is equal to anyone else's.

Short term thinking is what you suffer from

[SmallFurryCreature]

You assume a LOT about the future. You assume that advertisers will continue to want to be on slashdot. That a new generation of users will want to continue to visit a text only site. That slashdot editors will want to continue as is. That the cost of running slashdot will not change.

BUT, what about net neutrality? What is slashdot has to start paying for access to an ISP's customers? That is after all very much what the traditional content industry wants. They are used to it, delivery costs of magazines and transmission costs of radio signals. This "new" fangled "everyone can transmit for free" thingy of the Internet is very much a case of "do not want" as far as traditional media are concerned.

There is also a generation growing up, or failing to grow up, for who even this rant is already far to long. They can barely deal with a sentence let alone several paragraphs. Flashy full media sites appeal to them. See how big Youtube has become with what exactly?

And slashdot won't remain the same, it has steadily been increasing the fluff factor to attract new punters.

No, this article is NOT about TV on the internet. It is about the attempt once again to stop the open nature of the internet and get back to what AOL and MSN were supposed to be originally. Back to the ISP portal, where content was sold through the ISP. Remember them? You might not if you are young, but the ISP execs remember and the dreams of riches that came with them.

The open, anyone can start a website 100% accesible to anyon with no special privileges, internet is an accident. It happened while big companies looked away or failed to contain enough of it but that does NOT mean its future is ensured. Very powerful intrests are aligned against it and we might scoff at the likes of Murdoch but he got the money to change things, however slowly. Run an ISP, offer cheaper service, then when he controls the ISP market, change the rules. Ever so slightly until one day you find your ISP has become worse then AOL could ever have dreamed of being. All because you thought this article was about TV on the internet.

Re:Short term thinking is what you suffer from

[gronofer]

Imminent Death of Internet Predicted. Film at 11.

Yeah, I've heard these kinds of rants since the early 1990s. But the Internet is still here, and it still works.

Re:Short term thinking is what you suffer from

[jc42]

The open, anyone can start a website 100% accesible to anyon with no special privileges, internet is an accident. It happened while big companies looked away ...

Actually, this is seriously wrong. The "open" nature of the Internet was an intentional design from the start, despite its being nearly 100% funded by the military. This wasn't an anomaly or something subversive. It was a direct, conscious response to a recognized problem: The military found themselves using more and more electronics, but electronics from different vendors could hardly communicate with each other. And contrary to the (later formulated) Hanlon's Law/Razor, this incompatibility wasn't due to incompetence; it was intentional malice on the part of the manufacturers, who didn't want their customers to be able to easily work with competitors' equipment. The military had tried standardization, but found that manufacturers were quite good at being incompatible while following standards. An approach was needed that didn't rely on the good will of manufacturers to get compatibility.

So one of the original ARPAnet design goals was a network that would interface to any and all electronic equipment, translate their output into a standard "network" form, send it anywhere, and translate it to the input form required by the recipient. The intention was to defeat the universal desire of manufacturers to be incompatible with their competitors, and make it possible for any equipment anywhere from any company to talk to any other equipment.

And the big companies mostly weren't looking the other way. From the very beginning, they have always tried to defeat this universality of the ARPA/Internet, and trick their customers into a "walled garden" where competitors' equipment wouldn't work right. All along, we've had exactly this same problem. We've discussed it over and over, for decades. We've mostly won the battles, but Internet developers have always been aware that the war hasn't been won. It can't ever be won, as long as there are manufacturers introducing new equipment, and as long as portions of the Internet are owned and operated by companies that consider each other to be competitors. Those manufacturers and comm companies have always tried to establish a local monopoly (walled garden) that they control, and they will continue to do so. We just have to spot their efforts, identify them for what they are, defeat them once again, and reestablish the open communications that was the primary goal of the earliest ARPAnet projects.

(Something that was understood from the start was that there are obvious network security issues, and that these issues can't be solved at the network layer. They have to be solved by end-to-end encryption, which is the only thing that can't be intercepted and used/modified at intermediate nodes. So the military guys did understand that they were building an open system that could be used by anyone. And, back in the 1960s, they understood that this was actually to their benefit, since it would force the security software to solve things the right way, not with short-term kludges or security-via-obscurity. ;-)

Eheh

[SmallFurryCreature]

Why don't you tell part 2 of this story? Of the mighty Japanese economy taking a nose dive. Of the ancient and destroyed American car companies buying shares in the asian giants.

Yes, Detroit was arrogant, but they hung on and won the battle. Now with the recent down turn they are down again. But I wouldn't count them out yet. Not when everyone is buying bigger and bigger cars regardless of whether they can afford them. As long as cars are penisses, Detroit has a future. After all, you don't want to say to the world "My penis is Japanese sized" do you?

Don't count the oldies out until you have desecrated their rotting corpses.

It amazes me when people keep bringing up that old Detroit example and then forget the return of the American car industry. Oh, not with the massive factories located in a single city so the local population can through unions exert control over the industry and ensure a fair distribution of wealth... no. Very handy the collapse of Detroit. it means any area that still has a car factory will do a LOT to keep it. Tax breaks, union busting, no pollution laws... very handy indeed.

The price of Freedom is eternal vigilance. Sit back thinking the internet is safe from the likes of Murdoch and soon you may find that it isn't. He is smarter then you are, or you would be the one rolling in cash. When you got so much money, you can afford to change how things happen. And you can do it because average punters like you think that such an old fart who has run a successful business for longer then you have been alive must not know anything about business.

He can indeed close of his content, that is not the point. The point is, can he through buying ISP's, controlling large amounts of content, force a change on the net? Him alone? No. But he is hardly the only content owner who would like to change the open nature of the net. Microsoft has tried it. Disney and the likes would love it. That is an awful lot of money. And the average punter has shown in the past to have about the resistance capability of a sick mosquito. Tell me, how many copies does Disney sell of its DVD's with unskippable ads? That is how safe the internet is. Offer people a cheap ISP and they will switch. Then you show them ads, and they will stay. After all such things have been pulled before. With no significant backlash. It is a slow process, but if you think just because it is slow it ain't happening. Well, just don't come complaing in twenty years and ask where the internet has gone.

Re:It's happening. No more "long tail".

[mlts]

It is only going to get worse if nothing is done:

IPv6 is paralyzed in adoption. This means that v4 addresses will go up in price, eventually to a point where average people can't have their own website.

No such thing as net neutrality. ISPs can easily refuse to carry traffic of people they don't like, or charge their customers per byte for any sites not their blessed tier.

Closed environments are going to migrate from devices to the desktop in operating systems like ChromeOS, except without a developer toggle.

Laws are starting to affect people in regions far away from where they live and do business. It is only a matter of time before some post by a guy in California is against the law in some city in another state, resulting in the poster being arrested and shipped to that other state for trial.

Long term, if nothing is done, we will see the desktop computer evolve into a TV set-top box, and the Internet changing into Compuserve, with a login before one can send a single packet. Of course, this will be easily hacked by anyone with a clue, but the days are coming to an end of being able to post something in privacy castigating some policy in one country without worrying about being extradited to that country if nothing is done.

Re:How low can we set the bar for insightful mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

GTFO NEWFAG

Finally!

[KGBear]

I've been saying this since the late 90s. Looks like somebody else has been paying attention. And, it's not just to re-secure advertising; it's to close the game down to the currently existing players. Murdoch and others won't make the same mistake again, of allowing the likes of Google, Facebook, and the rest to change their game and become big players in the process. It's all about right to access. They won't be happy until I can't have my web server in the basement and the ability to reach anybody with an Internet connection without going through their services.