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from the not-what-we-expected-but-is-it-bad? dept.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/is-the-internet-a-failed-utopia/
LONDON—At Shoreditch Town Hall on Thursday, at an event hosted by Intelligence Squared and Vanity Fair, the longevous British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman of University Challenge fame asked the audience of few hundred: "Is the Internet a failed utopia?" He asked us to vote on the matter by raising our hands. About two-thirds of the audience disagreed with the statement, a fair few (including myself) were undecided, and only a smattering of people actually thought the Internet was a failed utopia.
It was then the turn of four panellists, in the style of an electoral hustings or stump speech, to change our minds. In the failed-utopia camp were Andrew Keen and Frank Pasquale; in the not-a-failed-utopia faction were Peter Barron and Beth Noveck. They took it in turns to deliver quite rousing speeches.
The naysayers obviously had the harder job from the outset—we were at an event that was specifically tailored for fans of the Internet, after all—but they did a good job of reminding us that the Internet, as it stands, is not the elysium that we were all promised at its inception. Keen warned us that, while we think the Internet is an idyllic plateau where everyone is on an even footing, where two guys in a garage can compete with the monolithic, infrastructure-owning giants, we're all deluding ourselves: just like the real world, the Internet is now ruled by big corporations.
The utopian speakers, Barron and Noveck, mostly focused on all of the cool things that wouldn't have been possible before the Internet and World Wide Web were created. Noveck, who was a driving force behind President Obama's Open Government Initiative, reminded us that, with a smartphone in your pocket, you have access to more information than the president of the United States did 25 years ago. Barron, who is a public affairs bod at Google, spoke about the equality of opportunity on the Internet—and of course, about all the free services that we get to enjoy.
What does SN think?
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:10PM
Two guys in a garage can compete with the monolithic, infrastructure-owning giants provided they are smart about it. And yeah the low hanging fruit may be gone. Also keep in mind there's the share of people with a clue, probably less than 15% and the rest which will flow like a river of sloppy dead fish, it tends to smell and everything that touches it will smell too.
But smartphone are pretty dumb it's just a locked down computer with a radio interface that may exploit it remotely. That will lie in your pocket and spy on you at every chance its creators gets and provide big players with more information about most people than they had ever dreamed about.
Don't forget all the free data mining services that you are enticed to join. The first one is free, the second one made you dependent the third one gets you taken care of by men in black - Trust us (tm).
We now have a global packet based network that can be accessed wirelessly using cheap equipment that can also be setup for mesh and P2P networking. There's also a global awareness of this. Sure they big central network has been had by large interests but it's a net benefit provided you actually think about it and make use of it in a smart way.
And the internets will never fix stupidity of people so route around that.