The Commercialization Of the Internet 305
YorickFinn writes "Common Dreams recently posted an article by Norman Solomon on "Denial and the Ravaging of Cyberspace." In short, Solomon argues that the commonly held view of the net as the last bastion of truly democratic mass communication is, in fact, a myth. For instance, he points out that "Websites operated by just four corporations account for 50.4 percent of the time that U.S. users of the Web are now spending online...." Ultimately, Solomon claims that the net may become more like "interactive digital TV," with the decline in the use of browsers and the increasing prominence of technology such as MTV.(The "M" is for Microsoft, formerly WebTV.) All told, his forecast is somewhat bleak, but not entirely unfounded. Worth the read."
without it we'd still be in '92 (Score:1, Insightful)
Stupid Users (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point of the internet (ok theres not really one point to the internet) is to ALLOW everyone to be able to have their own sites or visit the sites they want. This doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to go to the "underground" sites. If someone wants to go to a sanitized news source, that does not hurt me in any way. I've never understood the problem with letting people use the internet how they want. There will always be an "underground" on the net for people who want to go there.
It never really was democratic.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The net has always had an access cost -- you had to have a machine, you had to have a connection. In the "ideal" net of late 80's and early 90's, it wasn't necessarily more democratic. Only people with computers and net connections had access.
With commercialization came lower costs and greater access. So while the proportion of content has become less democratic, the number of people who have been given the opportunity to access it has become more.
No, it's not the wacky little connection of home grown websites that it used to be, but it's not necessarily a bad thing that more people have been given access either.
And this is a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no chance at all that the reason 50% of people's time is spent on web sites belonging to four companies is because those four companies are providing a service that Americans feel is worth spending 50% of their time reading?
Freedom of choice means freedom to make bad choices, and freedom of the press includes freedom to print crap.
marketshare is not a freedom measurement. (Score:2, Insightful)
So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? The volme of commercial traffic probably funds most of the development of road infrastructure (including gas stations, insurance companies, snow removal, etc., etc....).
As long as that "commercial" traffic doesn't prevent me from making use of the roads for whatever purpose I see fit (like going for a drive on the country, or going out for a spin on my bicycle), then I can't see how that hurts me.
(True, the Internet isn't what it used to be, but I don't see that the original ideals of free, global communication have gone away... if you take the time to look for them. The "unwashed masses" may still be duped by the forces of commercialism, but that will always be true. The Internet isn't going to "Save the World" any more than any other technology is.)
Re:And this is a problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
It never fails to amaze me how people equate "they don't do what I do" with "well, that must mean their stupid and/or *forced* to do something else."
The internet will become less democratic when others *force* me to stop publishing on the net. No one has yet to tell me I can't post on my shittly little website. [fatratbastard.com]. Just because no one reads it doesn't mean my rights are being trampled, it just means I really don't have anything compelling to say.
This seems a little bizarre. (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose AOL users spend quite a bit of time at AOL/TW sites, and since they represent such a large percentage of Internet users, that skews the figures. But that's hardly fair to the rest of the net, since AOL itself is dedicated to giving people an experience that sticks with their services.
If you consider the argument that AOL users are AOL users first and Internet users second, the picture starts looking a lot less bleak, with Microsoft at 7.5% and Yahoo at 7.2%. The fourth company must have such pathetic market share they don't even tell us who it is! But we can tell - the total is 50.4%, so subtracting out AOL, MS and Yahoo we get a titanic 3.4% for number four, whoever it is.
This hardly strikes me as a good case for massive concentration, and certainly it doesn't show how Slashdotters use the net. It is true that I explore new sites just for the fun of it a great deal less than I did before, and I concentrate on specific sites I already know. But every query I type into a search engine exposes me to new places, and Slashdot does the same, and some of those will wind up in my mental list of cool sites to visit.
So the situation is not so bleak. The fellow who wrote this, however well-intentioned, has blinders on. He starts with the idea that anything controlled by private business is bad, and inevitably comes up with the same conclusions writers on the left always do.
He forgets about millions of personal home pages, including my own, whose owners develop an expertise on various issues they are happy to share. He forgets about community sites such as Slashdot, where people speak freely about what matters to them, and help evolve an uncontrolled consensus. The soul of the net is still alive and well.
Any mass medium develops a large variety of users. Some of those users are passive, others are active, as many of us are here. In the end, though, that's a choice made by each of us individually. And the mindless drones are drawn to heavily advertised sites, but that surely doesn't mean the sky is falling; if they weren't here, they'd probably be watching TV, which makes viewing any web site look like an intellectual exercise.
D
Misleading stats (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the 50% stat is a little misleading. People spend a lot of time using free web applicaitons that sites like MSN and Yahoo give them. But should a person's time on Hotmail really be counted as the same sort of thing as a person's time reading the NY Times? If AOL forces its users to hit their page first, how does that compare to a site like this one (/.), where people choose to view it?
The Drudge Report is a good example of what the net can do. It's one guy with a massive audience. Andrew Sullivan's site is another example of a single guy with a big audience. I think sites like Indy Media have big audiences as well. Even if they don't, when compared to Time/Warner/AOL, it's an enormously powerful tool for getting the word out.
I think there's a parallel here to Linux vs. MS. People started businesses, everyone started talking about "world domination" and all of a sudden Linux is failing if it can't compete on MS's home court, the corporate world. But that's not the way Linux started -- it was a great way to learn, it was something that allowed everyone to participate. It's still great for that stuff, and it always will be.
Debian can't be killed, it will probably go on for decades. Seriously -- what possible scenario could you think of that would cause it stop existing? Why isn't that the relevant fact, instead of the VA Linux stock price?
Alternative media don't have to compete with commercial media to succeed. They just have to survive and provide high quality information. The net makes that possible, and it's going to continue to make that possible. And the net's going to make sure that almost every family in America, and in most of the industrialized world, is going to have access to that information.
Sure, most people aren't going to bother with it. But what did anyone expect? That the net would change human nature? Most people don't care. But a lot of people are going to take the trouble. They already do. And those people can make a difference.
Re:And this is a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah - it's because us Americans, for the most part, with notable exeptions, are lazy technophobes who have been convinced that if technology isn't "so easy a complete moron could use it", or doesn't look super-slick and glitzy, that it's not worth using.
People aren't interested in content, they're interested in big flashy graphics, and pretty lights, and little midi jingles that play when you hit a page.
Welcome to the world created by mass-capitalism and the sellout of government to corporations - where the incentive is not to make a better, cheaper, more efficient product, but to produce the lowest-quality product you can, while still making it sell well. Where the incentive is not to properly educate the consumer, so they can make an informed decision, and buy your product on it's merits, but to confuse the customer, and keep them stupid by telling them that competitors products aren't "as easy to use", and that they "shouldn't be bothered" with things that aren't "easy".
Yep. That's where we are. We're in a world whre everyone is supposed to be, and assumed to be morons. Distracted by bright lights and flash, while ignoring the larger issues. Don't worry about those things - they're not "easy". "Let us take care of that for you -- all you have to do is hand over your credit card -- that's a nice doggy -- here's a biscuit
Nah--I'm not bitter
Freedom of choice means freedom to make bad choices, and freedom of the press includes freedom to print crap.
So it does =) I hope it stays that way. Everyone (corporate or private) should have the right to publish what they'd like to publish. I'm even against "gating" content behind warnings and layers of obfuscation to "save the children" from pr0n, violence and the like -- I say let them find it! Let them learn about those things - and make their own *choice* as to whether or not to look at it again. Let parents give their kids the morals to know whether the stuff is "right" or "wrong" - instead of imposing "right" and "wrong" based on some farsical community hivemind. And for people that feel they "shouldn't be bothered" with pr0n or various disgusting content sites - here's a clue: "Don't go back there if you didn't like what you've seen there!"
::sigh:: of course, I *know* I'm in the minority - I just rant a lot
Re:Stupid Users (Score:4, Insightful)
When I get around having kids (G-d willing), and the choice comes to 1) put up a web page, 2) spend time with the kids. I will go with 2 every time.
I also don't see a problem with a few big companies getting 50% of the hits on the internet. There are thousands of small groups with web sites no one is stoped from looking at those site, and many people do. But it does mean that whats on the web sites of the big 4 is not useful (to someone) or relivant.
Owned by corporations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I correct in understanding that among that 50.4% are sites like Yahoo's Geocities and AOL personal pages? Which is to say, the sites are hosted by Yahoo and AOL, but the actual content is put there by individuals.
If that's so, then I'm not overly concerned at the moment. It's like saying that there's no free press because 90% of the paper in the US is manufactured by three corporations.
Okay, it's not exactly the same, because paper companies don't require you to agree not to print porn on their paper and they don't sell ads on letters to your grandma. But I think there's a wide difference between 50.4% of the sites being hosted by a few corporations, and 50.4% of the content being generated by those corporations.
It's the bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy enough to put up a web site off your DSL link or what have you, but once you get some serious traffic, such as the well-known slashdot effect, boom no one can get to your site any more. This is why no private individual that's not independently wealthy could ever try to compete toe-to-toe with cnn.com, say.
But that's not necessary. Very few people, with the exception of Matt Drudge of the self-named Drudge Report, want to compete with CNN. And it's much easier to compete on the web than it is in TV markets-- anyone can put up a web site overnight, but good luck starting a cable channel and getting cable TV carriers to carry it. The independent web is alive and well, and any talk of the death of it is greatly exaggerated.
The only thing that could possibly kill the web is control of the browser, which would be Microsoft. And you know that AOL-Time-Warner will fight them tooth and nail on that. Now if those two ever merge, then we should all be Very Very Afraid.
Waaaah! (Score:3, Insightful)
The one real draw of the internet, the low cost of entry, still is true. You are still free to go and make your own sites, just go ahead and do it. Just don't blame people for not visiting it if it isn't interesting...
(On a slightly different note, did anyone notice that the "top 4" companies were all portals? Maybe people's web browsers have set those sites as thier home page, and they get a "free" hit every time the browser loads up.)
AOL not so bizzare (Score:3, Insightful)
The adverts do bother me. It's up to us to make sites that suck less, and put those stupid bloated carcase sites like doubleclick out of business. If 50% of web traffic is going to those stupid sites, 49.9% of web traffic must be adverts.
Don't Worry, This is Just the Beginning (Score:3, Insightful)
We act like what is happening now is the final word for the Net. It's not even close -- someone just invented the horseless carriage, and we're really concerned because a couple of big companies have started making them.
Yes, those companies could be Ford and GM, but they also could be nobodies. We have only just begun; the technology is very young and very immature, and so are just about all the internet's users.
Don't worry yet. Worry in about 25 years.
Re:Stupid Users (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, companies getting 50% of the internet is not a problem. Hell, they can get as much of it as they want, as long as they don't try to push Free information off it...
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
All the techies and other people who use the internet for other stuff besides shopping and chatting still make use of a wide variety of sites and publish a wide variety of stuff just like they always have.
The stats are just skewed by the influx of lots of Joe Smiths.
Good News Folks (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people don't surf small sites because most people don't have the need - people are sheep - small sites that satisfy the sheep become big sites and get bought by the big 4. That doesn't mean that the other small sites that just satisfy the few don't still exist - its just that they'll never figure in this kind of article individually.
In publishing some of the most successful and profitable magazines are tiny circulation niche journals run by a couple of people for a few thousand or tens of thousand readers. As these move online, if peope continue to PAY to see them, you'll get more and more of them as costs drop. They may pick up a few readers, but they are niche interest and so have a limited audience - doesn't stop them being profitable - true democracy! MARKET democracy!
Re:without it we'd still be in '92 (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe that George Washington adamantly opposed the political parties, considering them to be a wedge that split democracy.
Re:Just 4 companies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Surveys aren't reliable.
But even if we look at traffic, I'm not sure we'd get a clear picture. True, the porn sites might show up, but I doubt that even they are as cluttered--uh, I mean "content packed"--as the top dog portals. When I load a single page from yahoo or MSN (or even slashdot) I get a lot more "traffic" than when I look at a page on somebody's personal site.
The point is: this sort of doomcasting is irrelevant. The power of the web comes mostly from the fact that we don't have a clear picture of what everyone is doing, where they are going, or why--even in aggregate.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. As a final comment, note that the original article is by the guy that doesn't get Dilbert. His analytic credibility isn't high in my book. I suspect if he knew that 80% of what we breath is inert gas, he'd claim we were all suffocating and just too dumb to realize it.
Data collection techniques skew results? (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, so let me get this straight...
So these people are making a claim about the amount of time people spend on websites. I'm still hunting for the reference, but the question I ask myself is, how did they collect this data? I can think of at least three different ways.
I would doubt method three was used, as it would probably be a violation of rights, and I doubt most ISP's would give out that info without a court order. So that leaves us with at least two other possibilities, either direct observation or requesting logs from websites.
As I'm sure most will agree, neither of these methods is going to give you good data. In the first case, I guarantee people are not going to surf the same way being observed as they will unobserved. Who volunteers for this kind of survey and looks at pr0nography, stileproject and other disgusting sites, looks at pr0nography, illegaly downloads music and movies, looks at pr0nography, grabs spl0its for some kiddie h4x0ring, and looks at pr0nography while being observed? If they were actually observed in a lab, I would almost guess the researchers might have warned against illegal activity while surfing. If the subjects were interviewed, do you honestly think they would say this is how they spent their time surfing. If you were to ask Joe Sixpack on the street what websites he looked at, he will probably only remember the names of most of the major sites (because they are so visible), and wouldn't have the guts to name his favorite pr0n site.
The second method has its share of flaws too. The researchers are going to, of course, request the logs for all of the major (ie visibile) sites. But how can you get logs from the multitute of little known sites out there? You will never get them all; the best you can do is estimate, at which point you are making up your own data.
If someone can get find the reference for this "study" and post a link here, I would appreciate it. I think Jupiter Media Metrix web site is mediametrix.com [mediametrix.com] but I can't get in with my non-Javascript enabled browser. :P
Communication is P2P (Score:2, Insightful)
-Peace