Life on The Net in 2004 554
NewtonsLaw writes "In recent years the Net has changed very quickly from a great place for geeks and nerds into a highly commercialized marketplace in which everyone is making a grab for your wallet. If it's not wave after wave of spam in your mailbox, it's excessively intrusive ad banners and popups, or demands by websites that you pay a subscription for access.
The DMCA and other pending legislation could soon mean that companies such as Microsoft and the recording labels will cement their total ownership of your online rights -- leaving you with nothing but a hefty bill to pay whenever you want to use their software or services.
Today's Aardvark Daily carries an interesting editorial that speculates on just what life could be like in the very near future. Sobering -- but perhaps not too far from reality?"
"Geeks"? :) (Score:4, Informative)
Hint: disable javascript, edit your /etc/hosts file to map various interesting domain names to 127.0.0.1, and don't use an idiotic mail client that eagerly executes scripted content.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. [wirex.com]
Immunix: [immunix.org] Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase [wirex.com]
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
While agree with most of what you said, I just can't let this go:
This is blatently wrong, and it saddens me that anyone thinks this is true. The original vision [w3.org] for the WWW, as written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1992 when he came up with the concept, says that:
That said, I have little to no problem with people trying to make a buck off of it (within reason... spam is not within reason). There are still lots of great resources out there that still adhere to Mr. Berners-Lee's original vision... like /. (although B-L was thinking more of academic colaboration than geeks pontificating).
Yes, the web has become more commercialized, but that doesn't mean it started that way, and it doesn't mean it can _only_ be that way.
World IP Organisation ... (Score:4, Informative)
A bunch of legal scholars spearheaded a counter-essay competition to reflect less sanguine views (http://www.wipout.net/essays.html)
It will be interesting to compare the results.
Re:It's called 'capitalism' (Score:1, Informative)
It is true what people want is an operating system that is friendly and easy to use, and stable. Such products existed in the marketplace, look at OS/2 for example. The use of exclusionary OEM contracts was used to deny consumers the choice of even buying OS/2, a product which was superior in it's time in many ways, including ways real consumers would and did appreciate.
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Informative)
Xtra is NZ's biggest ISP and is run by NZ Telecom which has a monopoly on DSL. It's DSL pricing is here [xtra.co.nz] ($NZ):
60MB at their excess charge (18c/MB after 500MB) is NZ$11
Re:I see one of four things happening (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bah (Score:1, Informative)
to another company who wants their money?
that's not a rebellion. a rebellion is rounding up all of the business owners and burning them at the stake.
Re:huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Hey! Good question! Hernando de Soto, in The Mystery of Capital, addresses the wealth (capital) of the poor. The "poor" in Egypt, for instance, currently possess capital worth more than the total sum of all investments, including foreign aid, ever made in Egypt. The problem is, it's dead capital. Unlike in Western market economies, average egyptians cannot convert their capital assets (e.g., housing) into liquid assets easily, or often, even legally. The laws of their country do not support private property, and therefore do not support investment ot people making money for themselves. 89% of the egyptian GDP is created in the "extralegal" sector of the economy. "Extralegal" assets are not convertible into fluid financial assets, so they are forced to trade in their own small circle, where people have their own "law" governing property and ownership.
This is one of the great and suprising discoveries that de Soto made when researching "the mystery of capital" -- that property law in the U.S., and the other Western countries, was created largely outside the government by "the poor." The reason the West, and U.S. in particular, as succeeded with capitalism and raised the living standards of its people so much faster than other regions, is that the government largely just gave into popular sentiment and codified the informal law as the actual law, then worked to make it standardized. For instance, in the U.S., the government fought farmers and miners for years, because they were ignoring the pondorous old English property law that the U.S. inherited. The settlers and prospectors worked out their own means of ownership -- and enforcement. When the feds stopped fighting them and joined them -- by passing the "Homestead Act," the American economy turned the corner and boomed (to mix a metaphor).
So, to return to the original question -- "How can the rich find a market to become richer if the customers (poor people) don't have any money to buy their stuff?" -- the answer is, "the 'poor' people have most of the money."
The hobbyist BBS is where it's at. (Score:4, Informative)
A friend of mine once put it this way: if places like Disneyopolis, MSN, and America Online compose the roar of the information highway, then your favorite friendly BBS could be likened to the corner pub where the locals gather.
Therefore I challenge each and every one of you to quit whining about what a commercial cesspool the mainstream Web has become, and go find your niche. Locate a BBS you like (I'd be thrilled if you chose mine, but there are lots of good ones out there) and log in daily. Become a part of the community. Meet people. Chat about whatever's on your mind: media, politics, sports, weather, relationships, technology, pets... it's all out there, and the sites operated by hobbyists are completely below the radar of corporate greed.
It's up to you. Don't like Disney's version of the 'net? Neither do I. Come join us in a place where they won't bother you.
Re:Its always evil heres why (Score:2, Informative)
Aha! I was waiting for someone to bring up this old chestnut. Here in the UK, we have a programme called the Mark Thomas Product, the host of which goes after large greedy corporations and government ministers who lie, cheat or attempt to stomp on the rights of the citizens. He does such a good job of this that one show featured proof (believe me, his research is THOROUGH!) that a government department was trying to take his show off air to save them embarrassment.
Anyway, on to the point, in the latest programme, the sheer scale of "drug dumping" by American drugs companies was revealed - thousands of tonnes of totally useless drugs and equipment, much of which had passed expiry dates just so the big corps could reap the tax breaks and not have to pay to have their surplus destroyed! Details of this programme are here [channel4.com] (as though anyone actually cares, being selfish and all).
Here's a typical example (taken from site):
"During the civil war in Bosnia so much unwanted drugs were dumped that the government were forced to pay $34 million to build an incinerator just to dispose of them. One charity we spoke to, Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres, said that they had to spend £100,000 in the town of Mostar alone disposing of these drugs in lime filled buckets."
There were other examples of US companies sending diet pills to starving third World countries, bikinies to Afghanistan and other bizarre "donations". The problem is that most of the poorest countries having this garbage dumped dare not complain for fear any useful donations might stop as a result...
Then there's the fact the US is by far the Worlds worst poluter, but that's another issue. I have nothing against the US, but it's hardly surprising they're the target of such hatred from most of the rest of the World...