Basically what you are claiming is that the Net has no legitimite purpose besides business. Bluntly put, you're wrong. You are gravely mistaken when you say "there's no justification for spending tax dollars to provide scientific researchers and college undergraduates with alt.flame." In fact, the internet has always been a medium for trading intellectual data. Recently, the Net has been used to share information about the mapping of the Genome. (Re: The NIH site) I can't cite other projects where the Net has been an efficacious medium for data sharing, but I'm sure there are many others. However, I'm not saying that business should have no place on the internet, but business shouldn't own or even dominate the internet.
This article is simply obvious. I know Katz likes to try to stir up controversy with his articles, but this one does nothing. What is more surprising is that Katz has relegated himself to using old essays/books. If you have ever read his second book, "Virtuous Reality," you would realize the similarities between this essay, and his prior one on Old v. New media. I don't particularly dislike Katz, but his last few articles aren't novel or even thought provocing.
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Basically what you are claiming is that the Net has no legitimite purpose besides business. Bluntly put, you're wrong. You are gravely mistaken when you say "there's no justification for spending tax dollars to provide scientific researchers and college undergraduates with alt.flame." In fact, the internet has always been a medium for trading intellectual data. Recently, the Net has been used to share information about the mapping of the Genome. (Re: The NIH site) I can't cite other projects where the Net has been an efficacious medium for data sharing, but I'm sure there are many others. However, I'm not saying that business should have no place on the internet, but business shouldn't own or even dominate the internet.
This article is simply obvious. I know Katz likes to try to stir up controversy with his articles, but this one does nothing. What is more surprising is that Katz has relegated himself to using old essays/books. If you have ever read his second book, "Virtuous Reality," you would realize the similarities between this essay, and his prior one on Old v. New media. I don't particularly dislike Katz, but his last few articles aren't novel or even thought provocing.