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

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

[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: 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.

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.