[IP] Six Things you need to know about Bubble 2.0
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 12, 2005 9:40:21 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Six Things you need to know about Bubble 2.0
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Original URL: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/07/
six_things_about_the_bubble/>
Six Things you need to know about Bubble 2.0
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at
theregister.co.uk)
Published Friday 7th October 2005 02:38 GMT
Web 2.0 Techno utopian types love their earthy metaphors. The web is
a new planet that's being "terraformed (http://www.google.com/search?
q=terraforming+site%3Adoc.weblogs.com&btnG=Search)" before our eyes,
one advertising consultant (http://www.searls.com/srlzgrp.html) likes
to say. Or the "web is a garden (http://www.theregister.co.uk/
2005/05/07/glenn_edens_profile/)", if you believe Sun Microsystem's
director of research.
Even my overgrown garden doesn't have something like this (http://
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/26/baghdad_smut_and_pain/) lurking in
the corner, and I hope there isn't such a horror in yours.
But enough with the hot-tub psycho babble. The future of computer
networks is both a lot more promising and a lot more ominous than
anything you'll hear at the "Web 2.0" conference in San Francisco
this week, where some of the web's horticulturists will be gathering
for an evangelical uplift.
There's every reason to be optimistic, now in 2005, that computer
networks can begin to fulfill their potential. They can even start to
be really useful - but it's only by dispensing with such utopian
nonsense - so we can really begin to see what these tools can do for
us. Here's a reality-based guide to what's happening - and if you
hear a futurist omit more than one of these in a presentation, send
them to the Exit toot-sweet, with a firm smack on the backside.
1. I for one welcome SkypeBay and GoogleNet, our new corporate
overlords!
The Web has become so synonymous with inter-networking that people
forget what we really have is a variety of computer networks of
different kinds. The most popular messaging software in the world
runs on one of these closed networks: it's called SMS.
In the 1990s, people found it useful to think of One Internet because
thinking of a single, unitary computer network appeared to imbue the
technology with its own agency and purpose. The One Internet is
popular with today's Californian hive mind set, who view technology
as a short-cut around all kinds of messy social and political
problems - and that's the thinking behind Web 2.0 utopianism, too.
But out in the real world, it doesn't work like this. Limits are
invariably imposed on technology by economic or social factors. For
example, the reason dark fiber isn't exploited, and that we don't
have terrific gigabit speed ISPs here in the US (after billions of
dollars were invested laying the fibre) is simple. It's because a) it
isn't economic for a private company to exploit it - there's no money
in it - and b) because there isn't a consensus for the state to
subsidize their operation, either. In South Korea, where government
directs capital more explicitly, things are different, and you can
see a tentative change in attitude to this here, with the growth of
the Muni Wi-Fi movement. Limits are also imposed because the public
finds a technology unpalatable: nuclear power and GM food are good
examples. The only sure thing is that limits are, eventually, imposed.
In the last month, even the most utopian of Californian technology
evangelists have begun to realize that the ugly reality behind the
economics can't be wished away. Google may be embarking on owning a
network infrastructure of its own, and eBay splashed out $2bn on VoIP
leader Skype.
Fifteen years ago, the rights holders were told that it would soon be
possible for secure, and reliable and speedy delivery of content to
people's homes - Video on Demand. Instead the internet came along,
which was anything but secure, reliable and speedy. The Wintel lobby
jumped to the front of the queue, elbowing aside the consumer
electronics manufacturers, and said "Sure! We can build it for you!"
And the impasse has existed ever since. Few people would have
objected if a zero-cost box alongside your VCR allowed you to choose
one of 50,000 movies tonight. The rights holders still want to this,
only by borking your computer. People quite rightfully responded
with, "Get the hell out of my PC!"
One is an acceptable balance, the other isn't. Maybe GoogleNet thinks
can succeed where everyone on the open, PC-centric internet has
failed. We shall see, but we know a lot of people are going to keep
trying.
So last week, even Supernova conference organizer and deregulation
advocate Kevin Werbach noted the trend, with some disquiet:
"The threat of vertical integration from the bottom of the stack has
been with us since the earliest days of the commercial Internet. Now,
surprisingly, it may be coming from the top as well," wrote Kevin in
a post entitled More thoughts on the fragmenting Internet (http://
werbach.com/blog/archives/2005/09/more_thoughts_o.html).
"I just can't help thinking that we're moving away from the common
platform that defined the Internet for the past decade, and we
haven't really examined what that will mean."
[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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