5 ms·
As far as I'm concerned it has nothing to do with joy. The internet enables a lot of things that can improve human knowledge and prowess. It also enables the
by trey-jones 5y ago
As far as I'm concerned it has nothing to do with joy. The internet enables a lot of things that can improve human knowledge and prowess. It also enables the opposite. This has always been the case, but I think the hindrances are progressing faster than the helpers.
Here are a couple of the best things that I think the internet provides, both of which have been around basically since its inception:
1. Instant communication ie. email and instant messaging
2. Free sharing of knowledge ie. scholarly articles, and yes, Wikipedia
If you have an Android phone and have ever used the Google news feed (from AMP), then you've seen what I think are the worst parts of the internet today. As far as I know it's grown more and more prolific over the years:
I'm talking about content that's created solely as a vehicle for advertising. It's either speculation (which may provide some value) or simply "reporting" on information that has changed hands many times. In other words, while the original source might be available on the internet, you will never find it because it's been re-reported by ten thousand other sources that all want a slice of the ad revenue.
Proliferation of misinformation, both accidental and intentional, goes along with the above, though there are other opportunities for this as well (like social media).
There are countless pros and cons that I don't even know about of come in contact with, but I would agree on the whole with the idea that the internet is a poorer tool for good than it was, at least 15 years ago, and probably 20 as well.
- gentleman11 5y agoThat free sharing of knowledge more or less destroyed the music industry, and commoditized many other things too. It’s extremely hard to make a living wage at many things now. We have a fake gig economy to replace middle class jobs
- jefftk 5y agoWhy do you say the music industry is destroyed? With streaming, music industry revenues are almost back to their late '90s peak, and the diversity of options today is incredible.
- gentleman11 5y agoMusic used to earn a lot of people a middle class income. Streaming only really benefits the top of the charts. Everyone else works part time and music innovation stagnates since risk is so much higher for anyone who actually wants to earn anything. App stores do this too, commoditizing apps - only 0.01% of apps make back their dev cost. So what if a handful at the top make a dump truck of money? Nobody but risk averse executives can afford to spend years at a time experimenting https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/9999-in-10000-mobile-apps-will-fail-heres-why/ https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/9999-in-10000-mobile-apps-...
- TchoBeer 5y agoI'd rather have it harder to make a living in the music industry if it means the free sharing of music (and thus I have access to all music from all of history). We have more musicians in absolute terms than every before anyway.
- gentleman11 5y agoFalse. We have more musician gig workers, but the lack of any music movement in the last 20 years is because musicians don’t have an opportunity to develop their own styles while earning a modest living. We have an army of part timers and a few at the top. Meanwhile, you are just enjoying the freebies
- TchoBeer 5y agoI enjoy tons of music from the past 20 years. One of my favorites, Nikolai Kapustin, died last year. I don't know in what sense you think music has stopped happening but you're very much incorrect about that.