17 May 09 The individual web: A counter-argument

Tags: individual, internet, web

After reading Bryan Appleyard’s article, “Break free of this world wide delusion“, I had to reply.

The article states that David Edgerton says, “The internet is rather passe… It’s just a means of communication, like television, radio or newspapers.” If you look at clinically. Yes, the internet is a form of communication. It allows countless amounts of people to connect around the globe without any form of restraint (speaking in terms of physical space and time). What David Edgerton don’t see is that television, radio and newspapers are predominantly 1-dimensional media. What do I see on my TV? The shows that the media execs think I might want to see. Radio? It’s the same. I tune in, to listen whatever is on. Newspapers are the same. They write the stories that they think their market wants to read. It is lobsided: a few people determine what thousands see and hear. As mentioned in a previous blog post. Because the new web is allowing everyone to become media creators, more and more forces are able to exact on the supply and demand of what people want to see, hear and read from the media. Fred, the 1st person to have 1 million subscribers on YouTube would never have come to fruitition if the internet didn’t exist. No media powerhouse could’ve predicted his success.

One great promise of web 2.0 was that it would lead to a post-industrial world in which everything was dematerialised into a shimmer of electrons. But last year’s oil price shock and this year’s recession, not to mention every year’s looming eco-catastrophe, show that we are still utterly dependent on the heavy things of the old economy.

Where are these promises written? Yes, ideally, that’s what the web could achieve. Yes, we are still dependent on the old economy, but that doesn’t take away the merits of the internet and what it is trying to achieve.

The first objection to this [empowering of the individual] is that it destroys institutions and structures that can do so much more than the individual. The liberty which the web offers to the individual voice is also a restriction on group effort.

What? Linux? Firefox? Wikipedia? What drives people to work collaboratively on these projects? It is by the desire that we all have. I want an OS to do what I want it to. I want a better web browser. I want instant knowledge. It is driven by individual need, but through the web, it makes it much easier create things bigger than individual need. It is rewarding to feel that when I contribute to an article on wikipedia, I’m passing down knowledge and contributing to a whole, greater than myself. The article states that wikipedia is plagued by inaccuracy… The inaccuracy is almost, always temporary. The information is more often than not more accurate than real encyclopaedias.

Even Twitter is already coming to be dominated by conventional, non-web-based celebrity — Oprah Winfrey in the US and Stephen Fry over here.

These are already powerful individuals. The web is an extension and accentuation. Why should the web not reflect this?

The slightly more sinister aspect of this is that excessive individualism leads with astonishing rapidity to slavish conformity. The banking crisis may not have been caused by the internet but it was certainly fuelled by the way connectivity and speed created a market in which everybody was gripped by the hysteria of the herd.

Yes, with this I have to agree. The web accentuates everything we do. A run on the banks would crash the market quicker than without the internet. Isn’t this better though if you think in the long-term? The banks would’ve crashed if the internet didn’t exist, but it would’ve taken a tad longer. Word of mouth spreads regardless… If it crashes quickly, isn’t it then true for the opposite? It stablises and grows out of the funk much quicker too. For those not easily gripped by hysteria of the herd could also have used the internet to gather more information on what is happening.

Or there is the weird phenomenon of flash mobs.

Cmon! Flash mobs are awesome. A beautiful side-effect of people being brought together without the limit of time and space. It’s like the 21st century mexican wave.

 I know that this article — it always happens — will be sneered at all over the web by people who cannot think for themselves because they are blindly faithful to the idea that the web is the future, all of it.

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels (thanks wikipedia). Of course it is the future. The potential of what it can achieve is only at the beginning. The web can bring people together that have been seperated by time and space, enabling and empowering them.

It is the cultists who threaten the web. They are the ones encouraging dreams of a utopia of the self.

Threaten the web? In what way? What do you want it to be? If the web is being threatened there must be something you want to keep/protect… Baffles me.

 The web is human and fallen; it is bestial as much as it is angelic.

So is humanity. The web is an accentuation of our society. You’ll see ghastly things and read opinions that you thought no man could harbour. These are just things about who we are. With the internet it has only come to forefront of society. You’ll also see things like Wikipedia, stories of love through the net, meetings of long-lost friends, inspiring blogs and feel the connection with, not strangers, but humanity. A lot of human endeavours have been about connecting and trying to understand each other. It is driven by the need to have at least 1 other human being understand who you are. This is what the internet is doing: extending the individual.