Is this the general direction of the Internet - into a largely non-participatory medium?
Is the history of the internet being lost?
I ask these rhetorically, but as someone who basically grew up online, it's really pissing me off that online culture, which, for all its faults, was a medium that was largely created by its users, has not only been taken over by AOL and Microsoft, but that it looks like the history of the net is being rewritten too. I don't know how. All I know is, I talk to people who are new to online life, and they think it's an extension of MSNBC, and it's a commercial space created by corporate interests.
More disturbing is that most of these people simply accept that these systems are impenetrable, and that great expertise is required to create websites. Something is wrong here. --
-------------------------------------- John Kawakami work (10am - 7 or 8) 818-385-2048 home (9 pm - 1 am) 818-543-0864 johnk at cyberjava.com, johnk at firstlook.com