Comments on: Technoutopia socialism http://weblogsky.com/2009/06/08/technoutopia-socialism/ Culture | Community | Networks | Media | Technology Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:18:58 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Bob Melcher http://weblogsky.com/2009/06/08/technoutopia-socialism/comment-page-1/#comment-799 Bob Melcher Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:24:35 +0000 http://weblogsky.com/2009/06/08/technoutopia-socialism/#comment-799 I have to disagree with using the term "Socialism in this context". Socialism connotes a higher authority owning the means of production and allocating the benefits. Some people find socialism easy, and in the beginning of the web, when the common person wanted the connection, but not the hassle, there was the AOL big brother to help them (Kudos to Big Brother to help millions get started!). The Internet is now the perfect democracy. And its perfect capitalism. Its built out of hundreds of suppliers who sell small connections to homes and businesses. A common customer is $20 per month, and a big customer is $10,000 per month. The hundreds of suppliers agglomerate bandwidth and then take some portion of their revenues to connect to intercity carriers. If they've got their own relationship with ARIN, they can easily change carriers at will and often do. Anger a customer and they 'vote' their internet money elsewhere. Change a rule on a social media website and we just stop visiting. Can't charge for advertising to an audience that isn't there. ANd if your audience goes elsewhere, you are no longer important! Social media is a series of self-selected members who 'vote' their presence based on message, functionality, tolerance (or lack thereof) and return for their effort. Its merchant capitalism, where the merchant attracting the most customers to the highest margin sales wins. But its also a college, in which experts come together to provide each other with resources to protect integrity and disseminate knowledge. How many very specialized groups do you know that have a Linux server made of spare parts and strict rules to guarantee that the content of their expertise is kept whole and yet is available to all disciples of the religion? I have to disagree with using the term “Socialism in this context”. Socialism connotes a higher authority owning the means of production and allocating the benefits. Some people find socialism easy, and in the beginning of the web, when the common person wanted the connection, but not the hassle, there was the AOL big brother to help them (Kudos to Big Brother to help millions get started!).

The Internet is now the perfect democracy. And its perfect capitalism. Its built out of hundreds of suppliers who sell small connections to homes and businesses. A common customer is $20 per month, and a big customer is $10,000 per month.

The hundreds of suppliers agglomerate bandwidth and then take some portion of their revenues to connect to intercity carriers. If they’ve got their own relationship with ARIN, they can easily change carriers at will and often do.

Anger a customer and they ‘vote’ their internet money elsewhere. Change a rule on a social media website and we just stop visiting. Can’t charge for advertising to an audience that isn’t there. ANd if your audience goes elsewhere, you are no longer important!

Social media is a series of self-selected members who ‘vote’ their presence based on message, functionality, tolerance (or lack thereof) and return for their effort. Its merchant capitalism, where the merchant attracting the most customers to the highest margin sales wins.

But its also a college, in which experts come together to provide each other with resources to protect integrity and disseminate knowledge. How many very specialized groups do you know that have a Linux server made of spare parts and strict rules to guarantee that the content of their expertise is kept whole and yet is available to all disciples of the religion?

]]>