Open and Rich Co-exist But Don't Mingle So Much (scripting.com)

In an interview with The Atlantic, Ev Williams, best known for co-founding Blogger, Twitter, and Medium, says the web is about money now -- and not creativity. According to him, the burst of creativity has repeatedly been followed by big companies showing up and locking it down. From the article: But the thing about dreaming up a future, and making it real, is then you have to live in it. Back in San Francisco, coming out of the BART station on Market Street, he admits that the web game has changed since he came up. [Editor's note: he is talking about web services that allow you to book a taxi with an app, pay for stuff you purchase with your phone]. "There were always ecommerce startups," he says. "I was never part of that world, and we kind of looked down on them when the whole boom was happening. We were creating businesses, but ours had more creativity, ours weren't just for the money. Or maybe ours were even for utility but not just money, whereas clearly there are ways for both." He laughs. "Even the Google guys -- they were trying to create something really useful and good for the world, and they made all the money." Software developer and writer Dave Winer disagrees. He believes that not all technologies are money-driven -- at least when you look at it from a different perspective. He writes: The fun is over. Now it's about money. I guess that's what you see from his perspective. And from Facebook, Apple and Google, and maybe Oracle and Salesforce, and a few others. But there are technologies that went a different way. My favorite example is Manhattan's relationship to Central Park. The apartment buildings around the park are the money, and the creativity is in the park. The buildings are exclusive, the most expensive real estate in the world. The park is open to anyone, rich or poor, from anywhere in the world. The park is the engine of renewal. It's where the new stuff comes from. The buildings are where the money is parked. In the interview Williams did with the Atlantic, in NYC, they looked into the park from a nearby hotel. That's one valid perspective of course. Or you could go for a walk and see wha''s happening inside the park. You can see a great concert at Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, but there's great music in the park too. It's different. But it's good music. And the price is right.

Comments

It was different in my day...

[93 Escort Wagon]

That's what they always claim, anyway. Your motivation was always more pure than that of the money grubbers that came afterward.

Re:It was different in my day...

[thinkwaitfast]

I remember computers back in the 80's being all about the money. And before that, televisions and radio before that. Piano's used to be a big thing before radio's and every house had one. At least houses of the rich people. The poor had to be content with spoons washboards and empty moonshine jugs. Oh, how things are the same but with more electricity.

As an aside, I was watching an interview with Daniel Ash today bemoaning the fact that they were popular, but never made much money, it was all about the money for them. See also Hooker with a penis

Re:It was different in my day...

[Anonymous Coward]

Piano's used to be a big thing before radio's

Before that, it was apostrophe's.

Re:It was different in my day...

[Archtech]

Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues who invented and developed the Web took the deliberate decision to give it away to the world, free of charge or any encumbrance. This was partly because they believed its growth would be limited if it were proprietary or if it cost anything. Instead, they sacrificed what could have been many billions of dollars - why would Bill Gates or any of the leaders of Microsoft, for example, be rewarded any more generously than those who gave the world the Web? Although the Internet (and before it the ARPAnet) existed for decades before the Web, it never became a mass medium. First the Web made the Internet accessible and easily usable, and then Web browsers and protocol stacks became available for Windows. The combination of Windows and the Web transformed the world, and today it is very hard to say which is more important or plays a bigger role. Personally, I would choose the Web, as I use Linux to access it and so I don't need Windows. But there is no alternative to the Web.

So I resent and strongly reject any suggestions that the Web was a money-making project. Quite the opposite is the case.

Re:It was different in my day...

[Archtech]

People seem to have forgotten that the Internet was originally called ARPANET.

People seem to have forgotten that I mentioned that in my comment, to which you were replying. As for your dire predictions, they sound plausible. But remember John Kenneth Galbraith's warning about predictions:

"There are two kinds of forecasters. Those who don't know what's going to happen, and those who don't know they don't know what's going to happen".

For instance, the Internet and the Web may be doomed to proprietary lock-in in the USA, as you say. But that leaves 95% of the world's population, who live outside the USA, to make things happen in different ways. Starting, of course, with dissolving the EU and rejecting TTP and TTIP.

Captain Obvious

[PopeRatzo]

Ev Williams, best known for co-founding Blogger, Twitter, and Medium, says the web is about money now -- and not creativity.

This has been the week for tech legends proclaiming stuff that's been going on for over a decade.

Show of hands: Who didn't know it would end up exactly like this as soon as they started monetizing the Web?

Re:Captain Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Show of hands: Who didn't know it would end up exactly like this as soon as they started monetizing the Web?

Probably everyone working on the web. Remember: it's an industry of kids. When your gem turns black, they toss you out on your ass. It's also the reason why they reinvent the wheel every six months and pat themselves on the back for their groundbreaking work.

Re:Captain Obvious

[lucm]

That guy is something else. He subsidized the development of twitter using the money he made with blogger, then kept a backstabbing buffoon on the twitter board because he didn't want to hurt his feeling - only to end up kicked out of his own company by the said buffoon who orchestrated a coup.

And then instead of just bitching and moaning about the situation, he went and created medium.

I'll always pay attention when that guy has something to say.

Re:Captain Obvious

[Required Snark]

Considering that everyone on Slashdot agrees with this deep insight, it must be the case that we all took economic advantage of the situation and are now all exceedingly rich.

I know that I am fabulously wealthy and have multiple houses in expensive locations and can go anywhere and do anything I want, which is why I spend time on Slashdot instead of going to incredibly trendy locations with the other beautiful people.

Re:Captain Obvious

[Archtech]

Everything gets monetized, and thus spoiled, in due course. Take something about as far from the Web or computing as you can imagine: athletics (in the sense of "track and field"). When I was young, I followed athletics religiously and I recall reading Herb Elliott's book "The Golden Mile" which was published in 1960, immediately after he won the Olympic 1500 metres in a new world record time. Elliott told, among other things, how he was nearly disqualified for "professionalism" after he was quoted speaking well of a soft drink - although no payment was involved. When Elliott broke the 4-minute mile at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, tens of thousands of fans packed in to watch. But he actually had to pay for a ticket to get in, because if he got in free that would have been "like payment".

Then, in the 1970s, things swung to the opposite extreme. Professionalism was permitted, and within a few years athletics was cursed with drug-taking, which has haunted it ever since. Whereas a man or woman seeking to be the best in the world would usually scorn to use drugs or any other artificial aid, a professional sportsperson seeking to earn huge sums of money was often much more amenable. Nowadays it's hard to believe in any sporting hero or heroine, as outstanding performance raises such a strong suspicion of drug-taking or some other form of cheating.

Money is a universal solvent. There is hardly any human value that it cannot corrode and, given enough time, dissolve.

Re:Captain Obvious

[PopeRatzo]

Money is a universal solvent. There is hardly any human value that it cannot corrode and, given enough time, dissolve.

Well put. I would change it to, "a love of money is a universal solvent". but the idea is the same. Commerce is necessary, but should not be the goal of all human endeavor.

Re:Love Of Money Is The ROOT Of All Evil.

[thinkwaitfast]

How do you get everyone to decide on a definition of greed?

According to wikipedia:

[greed] may apply to the need to feel more excessively moral, social, or otherwise better than someone else.

Re:Love Of Money Is The ROOT Of All Evil.

[blackprint]

Think that's misquoted, it's the root of all sorts of evil, not simply "all evil".

Re: Love Of Money Is The ROOT Of All Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dominance without compassion is the real issue.
Dominance with compassion is an essential part of leadership, parenting, teaching, caring and protection. Dominance without compassion leads instead to exploitation, bullying, oppression and war.
Only with compassion can the relationship between leaders and followers be healthy and mutually beneficial.

It's always about money

[grasshoppa]

Reading that, I can't help but feel it's more about some dude writing about his own disillusionment as apposed to society's.

It's always about money, it's always about the economy. *ALWAYS*. VCs let you pretend otherwise for a little while, but ultimately you either a) start making money or b) go out of business.

Economy, or greed, rules.

True...

[Lumpy]

I was here when the internet started, I saw how it was a wild west of creativity and innovation... and I watched the assholes lock it all down and squash it by lobbying for patents and copyrights on things they should never be allowed to have.

3d printing right now is that same wild west, so if you want creativity go there before the assholes discover that they are not squeezing every penny out of that and shut that down too.