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

[ravi]

JC Helary wrote:
>> 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.
> 

Exactly what I was typing up in my response.

I think people like Mr.Boyle, and an entire generation of
Internet-geek-libertarians, think somehow that their time in
history is particularly unique. A sort of desire to get
self-congratulatory in their old age... but that's idle
psychoanalysis ;-).

Dwayne, I also urge you to address the other criticisms (not
all of which were technical) in my post. For e.g., the idea
that open copyright free development is what led to the
success of the Internet (his claim, as I read it, broadly),
and my criticism that that was just one element, the others
being govt and other support, a fairly small technical
community that could subvert democratic processes, etc.

	--ravi