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Internet Is Having a Midlife Crisis (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the perspective dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The rise of cyber-bullying and monopolistic business practices has damaged trust in the internet, pioneering entrepreneur Baroness Lane-Fox has told the BBC. The Lastminute.com founder also called for a "shared set of principles" to make the web happier and safer. She said the internet had done much good over the last 30 years. But she said too many people had missed out on the benefits and it was time to "take a step back". "The web has become embedded in our lives over the last three decades but I think it's reached an inflexion point, or a sort of midlife crisis," she told Radio 4's Today programme. Baroness Lane-Fox co-founded travel booking site Lastminute.com in 1998 before going on to sell the firm for 577m pound seven years later. She described the early days of the internet as being "full of energy and excitement," and akin to the "wild West". "There was this feeling that suddenly, with this access to this new technology, you could start a business from anywhere," she said. However, she said that while technology had become a hugely important sector of the UK economy, it had not fulfilled its early potential.

32 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. If one wants to recapture that Wild West energy... by forkfail · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... I cannot think of a better way than imposing more regulation.

    And if she thought that the 'net was a "nice" place in its early days, well, I suspect that she missed huge swaths of usenet...

    With this said, she is right. The character of the 'net has changed. But her own response seems to be very midlife in and of itself: let's try to recapture a childhood that cannot be returned to.

    --
    Check your premises.
  2. The Internet has been replaced by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is now the surveillance and propaganda arm of the government, and the surveillance and psyops arm of corporate America

    You've lost

  3. Who is having the crisis? by Jahoda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, she's 44. And, when I hear someone start talking about how things "just aren't the way they used to be" in that context, I think maybe it's she and not the internet who is having the mid-life crisis.

    1. Re:Who is having the crisis? by mikael · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think she is complaining it's not possible to create an Internet startup like she used to be able to do so, because there's always someone out there who is already doing something in the Amazon marketplace or elsewhere. Railway tickets? Done. Airplane tickets? Done. Car hire? Done. Alternative to taxis? Done. Retro merchandise? Done. Discount fashion show throwaway items? Done. Second hand books? Done. Antiques? Done.

      It's like academic research. What was once a hot research field topic, becomes one of a hundred books on that subject a decade later.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  4. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Lastminute.com founder also called for a "shared set of principles" to make the web happier and safer.

    Umm. Ok. Now compare to:

    She described the early days of the internet as being "full of energy and excitement," and akin to the "wild West".

    You can't have a vibrant, safe, wild-west. IMO, it's your "shared set of principles" that killed the Internet (or at least made it a lot, less interesting).

    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To add: what's more, the internet was a lot more interesting when people didn't even want to trust it.

      The internet started sucking when it became big business, when it became "serious," when it was somehow important to trust it.

    2. Re:Huh? by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The internet started sucking when it became big business, when it became "serious," when it was somehow important to trust it.

      This.

      Commercialization of the internet transformed internet culture into something very different, and worse.

    3. Re:Huh? by swillden · · Score: 2

      The internet started sucking when it became big business, when it became "serious," when it was somehow important to trust it.

      This.

      Commercialization of the internet transformed internet culture into something very different, and worse.

      And it also made the Internet much more useful, because there's so much of it. Those things go hand in hand. It's like the difference between quirky coffee shops and bookstores in SOHO, or Mall of America. The former is going to be much more interesting, but you can't find most of what you need. The latter is big and sanitized and commercialized, but there's very little you can't find.

      You don't get scale and breadth without commercialization, because scale and breadth are expensive.

      Of course, the Internet does still have the obscure, quirky and interesting, you just need to look for it.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  5. The problem is not the Internet by William+Baric · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Cyber-bullying" affecting "young people's self-esteem" is not a problem. The problem is that young people from Western countries are now unable to cope with "bad" words which might hurt their precious little feelings. It's not "the Internet is having a midlife crisis", it's "Western civilization is crumbling".

    1. Re:The problem is not the Internet by Train0987 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Western civ is not crumbling. The failures who you mention being unable to cope are a tiny minority. Albeit very loud but still tiny. They have no idea how they've destroyed their own causes recently.

    2. Re:The problem is not the Internet by imidan · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem is that young people from Western countries are now unable to cope with "bad" words which might hurt their precious little feelings.

      It's not just that people are unable to cope. It's also their apparent inability to disengage from a conversation they find hurtful or upsetting. If a person gets into a flame war and just keeps going, maybe they should just... stop? I dunno, maybe that's a coping mechanism in itself. If a Facebook chat made me want to actually hang myself, I'd probably stop using Facebook. But a lot of people, especially young people, don't seem to have that.

      Younger people interact more online than in person today, even when they're sitting in the same room with each other. They still have the same peer pressures to conform and belong, and on various web sites and apps they can get a quantified measure of how well they do so. They go on sites like Reddit and post stuff, much of it not original thought but memes (not just of the graphical variety, but also textual memes like Slashdot's old Natalie Portman/hot grits bit), and they are desperate for people to upvote so they feel like they're part of the club. They may delete a post if it's not popular enough. And, of course, some young people's cliques have always rewarded them for being cruel to people, so that continues.

      It's not just younger people. Middle-aged people do it, too, going on Facebook with "1 like=1 prayer" and posts that virtue signal to whatever group they belong. But it's all just people speaking into the echo chamber they've chosen and hoping they've posted at the right moment for their groupthink to be validated by repetition and points from the rest.

      With various points systems, we've gamified social status, and people are biologically wired to like to win games. Even on Slashdot, many years ago, we had visible numeric karma scores, and people got into stupid e-penis contests to see who could get a higher number. It wasn't so much fun when karma turned into classified ranges, and people stopped. We're not at the point depicted in that episode of Black Mirror yet, but we can see the seeds of it.

      It's a social problem, partly caused by the fact that we have this new technology for social interaction without many generations of behavioral norms, partly caused by the fact that anonymity and distance seems to encourage people to be shittier and more confrontational to each other. Likely with many other causes. But the solution almost certainly isn't a technological or legal one.

    3. Re:The problem is not the Internet by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

      The Internet predates the period you think of as it's "creation". It used to be all scientists for the most part, before we badly misjudge people and let the lawyers in. Who promptly created spam.

      There is another Internet nowadays. We don't tell you about it, but it's much faster than this (40-100 Gbps) and it's also just scientists for the most part. We don't miss you.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:The problem is not the Internet by mjr167 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because this is what they are teaching in schools. My 2nd grader was told by her teacher that "words hurt forever". I found this out while calming her down after her friend calling her 'mean' reduced her to tears.

      There is no "sticks and stones..." anymore. Now it's "words hurt more than hitting" and "words are unforgivable".

    5. Re:The problem is not the Internet by imidan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess this goes along with the madness that is college students' belief that disagreement is innately hurtful and may even extend to the level of hate speech or threats. Young people seem to be taught that conflict is necessarily aggressive and wrong, and if someone else's opinions conflict with theirs, then those people are also aggressive and wrong (and their own side is blameless and innocent). And, apparently having lost the capacity for friendly competition, all that's left is ugly, go-for-the-jugular, all-out destruction of the other side. We see the same thing in our government, where compromise is now a craven weakness.

    6. Re:The problem is not the Internet by mikael · · Score: 2

      Some time ago, LA Times reported that kids weren't going to summer camp for the camping with backpacks and tents or hostel living, but for Yoga, inner meditation, and beauty therapy sessions. I wonder if the two are related.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  6. once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The rise of cyber-bullying and monopolistic business practices has damaged trust in the internet

    Internet culture died around 1993..

    Since then, it has been stamped into the dirt by idiots who have begged for and bought with their own money: more surveillance, less freedom, more censorship, less end user control over their own devices, and a wholesale transfer of that control to megacorps. They've constantly favored Facebook and other data-broker intrusions into "private" communication, putting a few for-profit companies into gatekeeper roles over ever increasing swaths of the internet. They've punished open standards and open protocols, replacing them with closed, central control ones. They've removed the ability of people to defend themselves against that "cyber-bulling" by requiring more and more be tied to real world identities, which enables the bullies and denies the victims a key form of self defense.

    No... the internet died long before this "Baroness Lane-Fox" probably ever heard of it. She's part of the problem, not part of the solution.

    1. Re:once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's not insightful and I'll tell you why..

      I was around for the rise of AOL and its spill-over on to Usenet.

      Usenet wasn't a bastion of hope and free ideas. It had all the petty bickering that any forum online has today. All it had going for it was that its pettiness was confined to the super-nerds and university kids who actually had access. The seeds of what the internet was to become were sewn far before AOLers ever came to town.

      The internet was made by people and is used by people and because of that it has all the problems that people have.

      The idea of the Eternal September is a one-sided load of crock.. If anything the spread of forums on the web was caused by heavy handed moderators who were intent on keeping their early Usenet echo-chambers exclusive to themselves and their cronies.

      There's the early internet in how I remember it. Good luck ever seeing that on the Wiki echo chamber..

  7. Who? What? by sexconker · · Score: 4, Informative

    pioneering entrepreneur Baroness Lane-Fox

    Who?

    The Lastminute.com founder

    What?

    You have not established who the fuck this person is, what they fuck they've done, or why the fuck I should care.
    I'm going to assume it's some egotistical rich busybody that has achieved nothing of significance by their own hand and is looking for some more ego stroking.

    1. Re:Who? What? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      TL;DR version: First-wave dotcommer who got rich IPO-ing a site before the bubble burst

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    2. Re:Who? What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      pioneering entrepreneur Baroness Lane-Fox

      Who?

      The Lastminute.com founder

      What?

      You have not established who the fuck this person is, what they fuck they've done, or why the fuck I should care.
      I'm going to assume it's some egotistical rich busybody that has achieved nothing of significance by their own hand and is looking for some more ego stroking.

      Founded the aforementioned Internet business which was successful long enough for her to get rich from an IPO and subsequent takeover. Has only done this once so we don't know if she understood what she was doing or just got lucky with the right idea at the right time (probably just got lucky).

      Unfortunately the British Government assumed this must mean she knew what she was doing and rewarded her with a place in the House of Lords. This is a permanent, for-life position so we're stuck with her for some time. It's quite difficult to remove someone from the House of Lords, even getting convicted and serving a prison sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice doesn't seem to be enough to get someone removed.

      So she has achieved something of significance but maybe only by luck. Otherwise you're pretty much on target.

  8. My thoughts by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Informative

    The internet has become too corporatized, monetized, and regulated! The internet is nothing more than a tool for corporations to reach their customer bases. It's lost the glamour of innovation and fun. The internet used to be far more open and the barriers to entry far less. Now that big telecom got its ugly mitts on it, you have to pay a minimum of 50.00 a month for a connection. Certainly it is at a higher speed and with today's technologies you need more speed but prices are still high enough to block out access for the poor. The poor need to visit a library with big brother Librarian and Government watching their every move. It is time to fork the internet into a community maintained network to take it out of the hands of regulation and corporate interests.

  9. Weird article by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Things that have contributed to eroding my trust of the Internet to some degree:

    Proliferation of fake news (by which I mean ideological propaganda specifically designed to look like news but with incitement as its goal rather than information)
    Government (pick whichever one you want) sponsored spying
    Dodgy business practices by large, well-known, IT-focused companies
    Data breaches and other hacks
    Viruses
    Spam
    Advertisers trying to disguise their ads as if they were a natural part of the parent page
    Advertising by looking at metadata

    Things that have definitely not contributed to eroding my trust of the internet:

    Cyber bullying

    1. Re:Weird article by eepok · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I take particular issue with cyber bullying because the term doesn't need to exist. It's harassment plain and simple. Often, online harassment quickly becomes PUBLIC harassment, but it's still simply harassment. Just like the adoption of "mansplaining" when "patronizing" already exists, creating new words with unofficial definitions allows people to control and change the definition to fit their needs in the moment.

      For example, if a 5th grader harasses another 5th grader via Facebook, many would commonly accept that as cyber bullying. But if a member of the public harasses another member of the public on Twitter and then, by virtue of the harasser's follower size, triggers a mass onslaught attack, is that still "cyber bullying"? What if the victim is someone with unpopular social/political opinions? Does it then depend on what those opinions are? What if the victim is being Twitter shamed for not supporting gay marriage? Is that "fighting the power" or is it "cyber-bullying"?

      I ask this as someone who is a long-time supporter of equal marriage rights, but a similarly long-time proponent of the freedom to have one's own damn opinions without being forced into the spotlight and being publicly harassed.

    2. Re:Weird article by budsetr · · Score: 2

      Wait a minute. People have their OWN opinions!??

  10. An HOA for the Internet, Just What We Need by elainerd · · Score: 2

    What a great opportunity for us to give up our freedoms on the internet so that a group of people who are not us but are very well meaning can civilize it and of course she had to throw in the obligatory "Save the Cheellrun!" nervous nancy hand wringing about Cyberbullying, oh noes! Unless I misread the article, the people she thinks should take on this "burden" is all the big players who are already bad actors and oh yeah, herself. Did she invite you? No? Don't worry, you let these people set up their bureaucracies in your 'not broken' system and hey, what could go wrong. I for one welcome our new Internet overlords.

    --
    Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
  11. Delusional Greed by geekmux · · Score: 2

    "...she said that while technology had become a hugely important sector of the UK economy, it had not fulfilled its early potential."

    I guess that measly 577m pound return you got growing and selling an internet service in less than a decade was somehow a pathetic attempt at demonstrating "potential", right?

    The only reason that "energy and excitement" has waned a bit is because your favorite domain name is being squatted on, and a million more patents exist to short-circuit innovation. Other than that, you can still start a business from anywhere (social media whore pays big these days), the internet is financially worth trillions, and is priceless when it comes to the value of the information it holds and delivers.

  12. Re:If one wants to recapture that Wild West energy by hey! · · Score: 2

    That's assuming the "wild west energy" is something worth recapturing. Sure, a lot of people struck it rich in the dot com boom, but the lion's share of fortunes made were on the naivete and herd behavior of investors.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  13. Re: Who is Baroness Lane-Fox by nitehawk214 · · Score: 2

    Oh, so one shill thinks the site is great. I guess we have to listen to everything this lady has to say and implement all her censorship err, sorry "shared set of principles" ideas while somehow making it the wild west again.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  14. Re:Meh by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 2

    This thing called human nature means that yes, it absolutely does. Doesn't mean we should do it, but pretending it wouldn't reduce abuse is naive to the point of absurdity. Of course many people will spout abuse when anonymous that they would not when their identity is clear.

    No, it wouldn't stop abuse, and no we shouldn't try to get rid of anonymity but let's not be disingenuous.

  15. Re:Leftists utterly hate free expression. by Daetrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since when is disagreeing with someone the same thing as hating free speech?

    Free speech gave the original poster the right to say whatever they wanted, and they exercised that right. It does not guarantee them some kind of "safe space" where they can be free of criticism or counterargument of whatever they choose to say.

    The reason free speech was guaranteed by the Founders was in order to allow reasoned debate and criticism, particularly of the government, without fear of retribution by that government. But if people as individuals aren't allowed to disagree with each other then you don't have a debate, you just have a bunch of sheep compelled to follow whoever speaks first.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  16. Re:Leftists utterly hate free expression. by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since when is disagreeing with someone the same thing as hating free speech?

    Since the moment it becomes illegal to say certain things. Not only is your opponent wrong when he says it, he should be prosecuted for saying it. That's when.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  17. Re:Leftists utterly hate free expression. by david_thornley · · Score: 2

    The first one is an opinion piece that asks questions. People are allowed to have opinions about possible Constitutional changes and speculate on the effects.

    The second one is about prosecuting fraud. The reporting isn't very good, but nobody who really doesn't believe in AGW would be prosecuted. Companies that knew perfectly well it was happening and lied about it for business gain would be prosecuted.

    Fortunately for you, it's legal to say stupid things, and while I wish you'd go away, I'm certainly not going to want you shut down by legal means.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes