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Open doesn't always win - check out Tim Wu's book the Master Switch. It traces the history of telephone, TV, radio, film (and the Internet, though I haven't got
by RobPfeifer 16y ago
Open doesn't always win - check out Tim Wu's book the Master Switch. It traces the history of telephone, TV, radio, film (and the Internet, though I haven't gotten there yet). Theodore Vail and AT&T essentially created a massive closed network and David Sarnoff at RCA/NBC did the same with radio & television. They eventually lost their grip on their monopolies, but the government was involved in both. While this isn't a perfect analogy, the imperialist nature of their founders sounds familiar :)
One interesting question: If Facebook and Twitter are NBC and CBS, who will be the cable provider for social networking?
- torpy 16y agoFrom the looks of things: Comcast et al.
- wladimir 16y agoThat's very USA-centered though. Usually, something was open in some countries and closed in others, depending on legislation in that country. Closed systems of global scale are a pretty new thing, and it's not clear how this will play out.