4 ms·
> "A computer on every desk" has become an internet node in every pocket. Running mainly a few apps/websites tightly controlled by a few companies strongly inc
by Ostrogodsky 5y ago
> "A computer on every desk" has become an internet node in every pocket.
Running mainly a few apps/websites tightly controlled by a few companies strongly incentivised (by greed and their governments) to keep a tight leash in the type of content that can be consumed AND created. I think Orwell and Huxley foresaw many of these perfectly clear even before the term "cold war" existed.
- AniseAbyss 5y agoDon't forget the developers who instead of hippies who were going to change the world sold their soul to the marketing industry.
- Ostrogodsky 5y agoYes, I am old enough to remember how we were all sold the promise of the "information superhighway", a bright future of a fully open, inclusive network where people would share knowledge freely in an instant. Every passing year the Internet has become: - More censored. - More commercialized. - Less open, more walled-gardened. - More banal (For example, academics used to write long Usenet posts, then they started to write blogs, now they mostly bicker on twitter) - Less sincere and personal, now people mostly use it as just another PR tool.If you dont conform, you will be cancelled, downvoted,banned, etc. Now, before someone comes to accuse me of "Old-man-yelling-at-the-clouds syndrome", I fully accept that in absolute terms we have more good things now, but the signal/noise ratio is also a very important thing, or as papa Stalin used to say: "Quantity has a quality on its own" , for every thoughtful post,blog,site we are drowned in thousands of crappy sites and it is not always very easy to distinguish them, because it is the sad reality that quality publications will little by little become crap just to survive or fit-in.