The end of the internet

On one hand, I think apocolyptic statements like these disillusion people because they make these changes a foregone conclusion for people who want to keep them from happening and, if they don't happen immediately, a round of seemingly baseless cynicism for the unconvinced. On the other, this author points out that there are still some avenues for action and is merely warning, much like many other media critics of the moment, that we are at one of those conjunctures where a permanent change in the function of the internet is possible.

The optimistic part of me has always believed that people wouldn't stand for this. The commercialization of the Internet would most certainly quell the already stunted realm of debate and interaction that takes place over it and choke off some of the more creative elements of our current culture. My belief, also, was that these companies would realize the kind of stifling effect their plans would have on the online community, seeing it as more in their interest to find ways to profit from the existing model rather than reducing the number of people able to participate. Wouldn't they realize that by killing the existing community they would be undermining their possible market base?

Then I remembered that they don't really care about this community: the democratic story line was just an ideological cover along the lines of Saint Simon in Mattelart's Networking the World. These companies could care less about the existing community precisely because they haven't really profited from it. The only reason they got involved in the first place was for profit --and not just reasonable profit but dotcom boom-fistfuls of dollars profits. Since that hasn't materialized in the existing model, it is no loss for them to mow down what is and try to build something that they can commercialize--just like they have done in built space over and over, as urban studies people have often noted.

This led me to also remember that, like Saint Simon, there is always plenty of ideological cover for whatever is ultimately done in the name of profit and, like my optimistic side, most people fail to understand the delicate balance of forces that has allowed the internet to thrive, instead accepting it as a sort of technologically determined function of the network. Further, many people, in their everyday dealings on the net, will probably see little change and, most importantly, a good number will probably have little problem in paying fees for services as they have the means, barely use it anyway, and see it (like these media corporations) as just another box in their house that brings them media. They aren't interactive with it (except through e-mail) and would probably be much happier to be able to watch TV on demand than to have equal access to various producers--after all, they have pretty much accepted that model for all the other boxes that bring them media.

But maybe this move, inspired by greed and commercial pigheadedness will simply further inspire the push for more public forms of the internet. I suppose that if it is, I should be involved in that push.