The irony is the internet holds incredible promise in undermining corporate control of media, since by its nature it makes possible immense projects driven by the community of those invested. Fanfic websites (see my entry on copyright, a couple previous) are one great example, another is the Wikimedia project (such as http://wikipedia.org/), another is open-source software such as Linnux and Open Office. Ebay seemed to be such a thing, directly connecting buyers and sellers, but Ebay is a for-profit corporation, not a project of a community, and so is beholden to corporate interests. Recent policy revisions in Ebay have shown the inevitable consequence of such miscegination: new restrictive rules are empowering professional sellers to the detriment of private sellers.
Someday it may be possible to communalize the production of computers. Doubtless, the breakneck pace of electronic innovation would be slowed. Arguably, that is not a bad thing. One of the great corporate myths is that electronics, especially computers, "come down in price." The argument goes like this: "I just bought a computer with a gazebo chip for $1000. Just two years ago you couldn't get a gazebo chip for less than $2400." This is true insofar as it goes, but what is left out of this story is that two years ago a gazebo chip allowed a computer to do all manner of things computers could not do, whereas today a gazebo chip is required simply to turn your computer on. The sad truth is that a simple computer for internet and word processing use costs the same today, and runs neither more quickly nor more reliably, than a simple computer did twenty years ago. Indeed, in 1991 I used a DOS-based Wordperfect that launched instantaneously and never once crashed, which is a substantial improvement over today's software. Some innovations really are useful. I really like the formatting powers of MS Word. I love broadband. But most of the time I do little more than type in Word. And while I can cruise the net faster with broadband than I could with my 14.4 modem ages ago, it's only about twice as fast, despite the hardware being more than 50x faster. The net has been cluttered with bloated coding to make it so that you have to upgrade simply to stand still.
That makes it sound like I think the effort is deliberate. Guess what? Open a copy of MS Word. Type "This is a web page." Click "Save," and select "Save as Type" a web page. Now click "View --> HTML Source". Twenty years ago you would have seen this:
<.head>
<.meta content="text/HTML" equiv="Content-type">
<./head>
<.body>
<.p>This is a web page <./p>
<./body>
Six short lines of code, that would take literally two seconds to pass through a 1983 dial-up modem. I just did this on Office XP, and got 95 lines of code, 16x as much, not counting that most lines are much longer. What are those extra 89 lines for? Other than to slow you down so you need to upgrade, it integrates your website with the proprietary Microsoft adaption of a tech-community coding standard. Come again? There is a coding standard that is free to all and highly adaptable to particular needs, called XML. Another one of those communalisms on the web, like wikipedia and linnux. So Microsoft has adapted it to their particular need: making a profit. Anyone web designing in MS Word uses Microsoft's proprietary version, making their version the defacto standard, and forcing independent designers to adapt themselves to Microsoft.
No, this is not an accident.
But I digress. The point of the preceding flame is that although taking computers out of the hands of corporations will slow the pace of innovation, it will ensure that the innovation that does occur is an improvement. The point of the whole argument is that one can use computing technology in a more-corporate or less-corporate fashion, and that indeed it is easier to reduce corporate influence on the internet than it is on, say, the automobile. Although the hardware is highly technical and it will be a long time before it can be replicated without corporate control, much software and content exists in non-corporate sources, and the benefit of avoiding corporate media control online outweighs the cost, at least now, of using corporate computers.
Second step: Communalize your computer
- Use open-source software whenever possible.
- Never use Microsoft products to design webpages.
- Use wikipedia and wikimedia, and contribute to their projects.
- When you are ready (I'm not yet), switch to a Linnux-based Open-source operating system.
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