Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Openness of Internet vs. iTools

Author:Steven C. Den Beste
Posted:1/7/2000; 8:46:56 AM
Topic:Openness of Internet vs. iTools
Msg #:14184 (In response to 14178)
Prev/Next:14183 / 14185

I think the concern is that this is another example of AOL-style Balkanization.

AOL users can access the net as a whole, and take advantage of all the content provided there, but in addition AOL offers considerable amounts of proprietary content only available to its own subscribers.

Their reason for doing this is obvious: it's an incentive for people to become AOL subscribers. But to some extent it also makes AOL parasitic: they consume content but (until the last couple of years) didn't provide any to the web as a whole.

What would be the effect on the web if such a model became widespread? Suppose that nearly every major web hosting site only permitted people to access their content through proprietary accounts?

You'd get a situation where many different sites jealously guarded their content; the users of any given site could "use the whole web" except that most of the web would be locked up behind proprietary walls.

That, in essence, is what this step by Apple threatens. If no-one else does it, then the parasitism remains sufficiently small to prevent damage to the body of the web. But any kind of parasitism can kill if it gets out of hand.

The strength of the web, the thing that *makes* it "the web", is cross-linking. What happens when the majority of links only work if the person following the link happens to be accessing the web through one proprietary service provider or another? (Or through one proprietary product or another?)

When the majority of links fail to work for the majority of users the majority of the time, the web as a concept will fall apart like a Kleenex in the rain. We are establishing an entirely new way of communicating here; there's never been anything even remotely like it in history. It represents participatory democracy at its best. It promises to spread freedom to places which have never been free.

One of the miracles of the web is the dilemma it represents to authoritarian regimes. If they refuse to let their citizens (read "prisoners") access the web, they risk having their countries fall behind the rest of the world. If they let their citizens read, those citizens will suddenly have access to -- and the ability to express -- "dangerous" information. The web can, indeed the web already has, changed the course of history.

Authoritarian regimes can't destroy the web, but greed could kill it. It's still very fragile. The kind of parochialism represented by this step by Apple could cause the web to shatter if it became widespread.

THAT is the danger represented by this precedent.

Don't let this sop to your ego blind you to the long term danger this represents. Like "The Prisoner's Dilemma" this only works to your advantage if you're the only one who screws someone else over.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:53:58 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.