Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2. A world with lots of interesting, creative things is always better than a world
which offers a small number of popular, smartly fi nished things.
3. People doing things because they want to is always better than people watching
things because they are there.
4. The distribution and funding possibilities of the internet are better than the tradi-
tional models.
5. Small steps into a changed world are better than no steps.
6. The digital internet is good, but hands-on physical things are good too.
2.2.1
The Internet Is Ancient (
In Other Words
: The Internet
Has Affordances Which Connect with Ancient, Great
Aspects of Humanity)
The internet, and the World Wide Web which was built on top of it, are powerful
tools for humanity, and connect with ancient ways of doing things. The internet
enables humanity to get back onto the track which had been the main story for cen-
turies, where we at least
try
to develop bonds and communities and exchange things
largely at a manageable, social level. The industrialism of the late nineteenth and the
twentieth centuries, and the broadcast mass media model of communications which
peaked in the twentieth century, destroyed this sense of collective engagement with
a one-size-fi ts-all, have-what-you're-given, service-the-masses model. Having gone
off down that path - a path associated with political passivity and environmental
destruction - it was hard to see a way back. But the internet offers a way of exchang-
ing communications, and goods and services, which is much more like the previous
model but on a bigger, broader, and international scale. A lot of it is about
conversa-
tion
, but the conversations can happen on a vastly bigger canvas than before.
Nevertheless, the conversations can retain focus, because any one conversation is
only there for those who want to participate, there are no limits to the number of
conversations, and anyone not interested in a conversation can just ignore it -
indeed, would not even be aware of it.
Of course, this view is simplistic and romantic in all directions - both overly
romantic about the past and the present and crudely dismissive of the twentieth
century bit in the middle. Nevertheless, I think it represents a sketch of something
genuine - and part of the evidence in its favour is the enthusiasm with which people
over the world, from all walks of life, have adopted online communications. The
internet could have remained a forum for exchange of information amongst scien-
tists, geeks, and government and military organisations, whilst the majority of peo-
ple stuck with the mass-market (or even relatively niche) television and movie
formats that had already established their popularity. This did not happen.
This argument may also seem to be compromised by the fact that, as has been
observed, there are certain internet-based businesses that can be accused of profi ting
from everyone else's creativity. However, those companies are not necessary or
