Re: [lbo-talk] James Boyle: Web’s never-to-be-repeated revolution

[JC Helary]

> None of this would be possible, I suspect, (or, it would be much,  
> much more expensive) if our barbarian horde of hyper-vigilant  
> corporations, now aware of the web as a profit vector, competitor  
> for consumer attention and, from their fevered POV, intellectual  
> property destroyer, were present and accounted for at the start to  
> steer the thing's direction.

But corporations have gone from merely vigilant to hyper vigilant  
_because_ the web is what it is today.

The web has greatly contributed to diffusion of "knowledge" ie  
intellectual property and chances are without 15 years of web  
development corporations would not be what they are today concerning  
intellectual propoerty.

Corporations are not _smart_. They can't guess which technology is  
going to make it in the next 15 years.

Something like the web grew out of proportions because it looked  
totally innocuous in the 90'. I am sure there are technologies todays  
that nobody cares to look at because they look dumb but will change  
the way we deal with the world in 15 years from now.

JC Helary