Money killed the Internet Star
From the top of Mt. Google, to the depths of milkandcookies.com, money is killing the internet, and most people are too uneducated to realize it.
I can still remember the early days of the pedestrian internet. When it took a tech savvy user to get his butt on-line, and everything you could look for was either free or in the works. In one year, I downloaded instructions on how to tune a drum, ream after ream of jokes, news posted pictures (of the non x rated variety if you must know) and dozens of things. If it had been up to me, I would have given each of these people a quarter or so for the one or two things I got from them, and hoped that they had enough information to put out there so they could make back some of their invested time. But the days of micro-payments are just now coming upon us.
Anyway, in those pre-historic days, you didn't need to subscribe to Slate to get entertainment news, it was free... Shockwave.com was totally supported by the user community behind director, and no-one was that interested in downloading music because it the speed wasn't there. No, I'm not going to say that speed killed the internet, because truly, I had speed at work, but the internet wasn't a medium for Deadhead like tape trading, it was a resource for information. For people to put their thoughts and dreams online for others to see, and for artists of every sort to show their creations to the world, Digital Blashphemy was a great place to get desktops, but no one would ever try to publish his work as their own.
Today, money is turning the internet into clique based groups. Maybe you have an account with Hallmark, so you never use any of the other good card-sending sights (like bluemountain), and never see the works put out by artists on those sites. You might have an account with the Washington Post, or Business 2.0, and never read any of the other thousands of writers poring their hearts out on countless other sites. No, you probably found the sights you see based on your friends these days, not a tech savvy friend either, but a pedestrian like yourself who found this or that site by accident, or more likely, another friend. So now your a clique. Because it costs more to find these other authors, you can't get out of the cycle your in... and worse still, you might have new and exciting problems, just like your friend does, because you use this or that software from this or that site. WeatherBug? Sure, why not? Sticking my head out the window is too hard, so I'll install crappy software instead. Oh, now they want me to pay for it? Sure, can't live with out my minute to minute weather report. (umm, if you were actually to do a little looking, you could find all this information up to the second at the national weather service, although I'm sure by now, that's corrupted too). Now I'm not saying that people who provide content don't deserve to be able to make a living off the internet, but the level of greed involved, and the "fake inflation" caused by one site setting a high price (such as AOL selling access for one price causes all the other providers to mimic or beat that price, but only slightly). But there needs to be a better way for these people to make a living at this than charging up the arse for access to this stuff.
Now I'm also on about Dating sights... I'm personally married and happy, so this really doesn't apply to me, but what about those two people who were destined for each other? What if they both join different sits? Each paying a subscription to their site, and never meeting and having that magical relationship because they can't afford to just join every "fly-by-night" site out there. Where's their happy ending, other than in a seedy bathhouse by some 60 year old Asian woman with bad teeth? What about the kid who needs to be able to find his research online, but winds up with second rate info because that's the site his parents joined as a substitute to old fashion encyclopedias? Perhaps the internet is even causing serious harm because the woman who wants to know more about the "guy" she is meeting for lunch can't afford to do a basic lookup on him without paying the $39.99 the research site is selling the service for.
Ok, I know that there are a lot of services out there that provide some of the functionality for free, but since the lawyers got online, even these are limited to providing only the basics.... So what do we do? What about blogging and podcasting and the likes? What about them Rick? Can't we just use them for our "free" information?
Well, in a word, No, even DawnandDrew are looking to charge for access to their site feed. I love these kids, and listen to them every day, but the first time they start charging for access, even if they still provide a free version, they have lost a loyal listener. Blog's? All you have to do is look to the google sidebar on this site to see that you have to purchase advanced features for this these days. Adam Curry is selling Sensaio, Gamespot requires membership to get the best demos, and some newspapers are only allowing you to get a small portion of the article before you have to shell out more cash. And the economy is burdened under the weight.
So perhaps it's time again to pull out the 'ol rally cry "Keep the Internet Free". Don't support these sites folks, if you have to pay to play, just stop playing and go outside. I'm not playing the one game I looked forward to for years, City Of Heros, Because it's a monthly charge, and everyone I know has dropped the StarWars MMORPG because of the mixture of over control and monthly fee. It's only a matter of time before Microsoft cuts their price for the next version of windows and makes updates a paid subscription.
Keep your eyes open people, it's time to get back our information, bring a little peace to the internet and use if for what it was intended for, the SHARING of information....
Vint Cerf would be weeping....
Ta... :(
I can still remember the early days of the pedestrian internet. When it took a tech savvy user to get his butt on-line, and everything you could look for was either free or in the works. In one year, I downloaded instructions on how to tune a drum, ream after ream of jokes, news posted pictures (of the non x rated variety if you must know) and dozens of things. If it had been up to me, I would have given each of these people a quarter or so for the one or two things I got from them, and hoped that they had enough information to put out there so they could make back some of their invested time. But the days of micro-payments are just now coming upon us.
Anyway, in those pre-historic days, you didn't need to subscribe to Slate to get entertainment news, it was free... Shockwave.com was totally supported by the user community behind director, and no-one was that interested in downloading music because it the speed wasn't there. No, I'm not going to say that speed killed the internet, because truly, I had speed at work, but the internet wasn't a medium for Deadhead like tape trading, it was a resource for information. For people to put their thoughts and dreams online for others to see, and for artists of every sort to show their creations to the world, Digital Blashphemy was a great place to get desktops, but no one would ever try to publish his work as their own.
Today, money is turning the internet into clique based groups. Maybe you have an account with Hallmark, so you never use any of the other good card-sending sights (like bluemountain), and never see the works put out by artists on those sites. You might have an account with the Washington Post, or Business 2.0, and never read any of the other thousands of writers poring their hearts out on countless other sites. No, you probably found the sights you see based on your friends these days, not a tech savvy friend either, but a pedestrian like yourself who found this or that site by accident, or more likely, another friend. So now your a clique. Because it costs more to find these other authors, you can't get out of the cycle your in... and worse still, you might have new and exciting problems, just like your friend does, because you use this or that software from this or that site. WeatherBug? Sure, why not? Sticking my head out the window is too hard, so I'll install crappy software instead. Oh, now they want me to pay for it? Sure, can't live with out my minute to minute weather report. (umm, if you were actually to do a little looking, you could find all this information up to the second at the national weather service, although I'm sure by now, that's corrupted too). Now I'm not saying that people who provide content don't deserve to be able to make a living off the internet, but the level of greed involved, and the "fake inflation" caused by one site setting a high price (such as AOL selling access for one price causes all the other providers to mimic or beat that price, but only slightly). But there needs to be a better way for these people to make a living at this than charging up the arse for access to this stuff.
Now I'm also on about Dating sights... I'm personally married and happy, so this really doesn't apply to me, but what about those two people who were destined for each other? What if they both join different sits? Each paying a subscription to their site, and never meeting and having that magical relationship because they can't afford to just join every "fly-by-night" site out there. Where's their happy ending, other than in a seedy bathhouse by some 60 year old Asian woman with bad teeth? What about the kid who needs to be able to find his research online, but winds up with second rate info because that's the site his parents joined as a substitute to old fashion encyclopedias? Perhaps the internet is even causing serious harm because the woman who wants to know more about the "guy" she is meeting for lunch can't afford to do a basic lookup on him without paying the $39.99 the research site is selling the service for.
Ok, I know that there are a lot of services out there that provide some of the functionality for free, but since the lawyers got online, even these are limited to providing only the basics.... So what do we do? What about blogging and podcasting and the likes? What about them Rick? Can't we just use them for our "free" information?
Well, in a word, No, even DawnandDrew are looking to charge for access to their site feed. I love these kids, and listen to them every day, but the first time they start charging for access, even if they still provide a free version, they have lost a loyal listener. Blog's? All you have to do is look to the google sidebar on this site to see that you have to purchase advanced features for this these days. Adam Curry is selling Sensaio, Gamespot requires membership to get the best demos, and some newspapers are only allowing you to get a small portion of the article before you have to shell out more cash. And the economy is burdened under the weight.
So perhaps it's time again to pull out the 'ol rally cry "Keep the Internet Free". Don't support these sites folks, if you have to pay to play, just stop playing and go outside. I'm not playing the one game I looked forward to for years, City Of Heros, Because it's a monthly charge, and everyone I know has dropped the StarWars MMORPG because of the mixture of over control and monthly fee. It's only a matter of time before Microsoft cuts their price for the next version of windows and makes updates a paid subscription.
Keep your eyes open people, it's time to get back our information, bring a little peace to the internet and use if for what it was intended for, the SHARING of information....
Vint Cerf would be weeping....
Ta... :(
posted by RP Woods at 1:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home