The "Death" of the Web - Post # 13 - Week 12 Pt 2

Applications are reactive to the web’s success. They don’t generate their own model. An app that utilizes the internet utilizes the web. It cannot stand alone. An app is like the stock of a rifle. It makes using the gun easier, but without the gun, a stock is worse than useless.

The article also made some odd statements about the nature of certain websites. The most important part of the word ‘website’ is the ‘web’ part, but the authors appear to have forgotten this. According to Wolff, at the peak of its success, “Facebook became a parallel world to the Web”. Just because a particular site dominates the population of internet users doesn’t somehow transform it into another entity. If you believe this, you would have to accept that if enough people got together on a huge boat, that boat would suddenly become a new country. It’s just a boat in the vast ocean, and the people on it are just a portion of a greater whole.

Google represents a sort of Roman Empire online. Since Google owns such a vast portion of the web, there are others who try to reinvent the web in order to pull the carpet out from beneath Google’s feet. This article promotes the idea that apps are here to do just that, but apps support the web instead of replacing it. In essence, apps have solidified the position of the web in everyday life.

Recently, I’ve noticed mounting evidence that companies are beginning to get the message – give the customer what they want, with limited effort on their part, but with ample options and variety. Some systems that use this well: iTunes, with its vast library, but quick service; amazon.com, which features a huge repertoire of items, with a million instant checkout counters; and Craigslist, which manages a large assortment of goods with a geographical emphasis. The sites that run with the customer in mind are the sites that get used. The thing is, customers don’t want to pay for what they don’t have to pay. Thus, piracy and open-source software has an advantage over other sites and apps. What balances this is the increased reliability of sites and apps that are paid for. At least, it’s in the corporate interest if users believe their experience is superior to the experience you could get for free. Whether or not this is true is up to the user to decide.

Not the Pointy Rocks Thing Again... The "Death" of the Web - Post 12 - Week 12 Pt1

Only things that are alive can ever die.

I’ll be talking about this article. If you actually take the time to read it, I am honestly impressed, but I must make a suggestion: read the comments section too. There are several excellent comments near the top of the stack, that definitely complement the article. Note that I said ‘complement’ and not ‘compliment’. The best comments are the ones that tear apart the claims of the authors of this article, Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff.

Why do technology writers rely so heavily on grand, sensational analogies in their work? I thought I had made it clear back in my Pointy Rocks post (which the authors clearly didn’t read) that the Web is not a living organism. It is an exceptionally pointy rock, not the adoptive child of the entire world. The web isn’t dead because the web was never alive. The web is certainly changing, but to announce its death is as ridiculous as claiming your can of Sprite just asked to use the washroom. It just doesn’t happen.

The authors got a lot of things half right. Chris Anderson made the statement that since youth have more time than money, they are more apt to use elements of the web that take more effort, but have the advantage of being free. For example, fire sharing is prevalent among youth, because they are willing to put forth the effort necessary to download torrents of pirated movies. More aged users have more money and less time to spend than youth. Because of this, they would rather just pay to get exactly what they want quickly. Both young and old want the same final product, but the methods to get the item changes with the resources available. Anderson got up to here right, but when he tries to relate the above information to the popularity of apps, his arguments fall short.

Anderson states that people pay for the quality of service (QoS) and convenience of apps. According to him, the best quality of an application is that it brings to the user exactly what they want with limited effort on their part. If this were true, we would never have moved away from desktop applications. We would be using Google.exe or the Mac equivalent if applications were king. Instead we use applications to access the web, which in turn provides users with a vast selection of services. There is ample selection and variety. It is much more convenient to open one application and browse using it than it is to open a specific app for the specific action you want to perform. Why use 5 apps when you can open one and get all the same information? It doesn’t make sense.

According to this article, HTML5 is an attempt to make the Web more app-like. Developers want to make websites run smoothly and easily. In its youth, only those with technical knowledge could aptly use the web. Since then, the web has become more accessible and easier to use without advanced knowledge of network systems. The authors of the article mistook the ease of use of applications for the next step of development. Apps are so easy to use because they present such a limited amount of stuff. There’s no other word to use than stuff. The typical browser has to show so many different types of media, that it is just not feasible to make it perfectly streamlined. When web controls improve, apps will be entirely unnecessary.

This post is about piracy – Post # 11 – Week 11

I’m on a roll tonight. I just finished post # 10, and now that I’m feeling better, it’s time to go back to what this blog is really about: analyzing literary works that are concerned with communication technology and culture.

We’re back to Matt Mason and The Pirate’s Dilemma, chapter two in particular. I’m sure you all have a copy by now. If not, they released it online for free, so go ahead and get it so you can be smart and stuff. In all seriousness, the book is pretty solid, despite being a few years old. For y’all who ain’t down with the kids’ slang, solid = good. Anyways, lets get on with it. I’ll begin with a picture. 

I like this image a lot. It’s not in The Pirate’s Dilemma, but I think Mason would like the picture too. This “handy little guide” is a comprehensive explanation for the piracy newbie, but it falls a bit short when you try to explain patent piracy. With patent piracy, once someone copies your patent, you really don’t have any power anymore. I’m not sure that I really agree with patenting to begin with. I understand that the creator wants some recognition for inventing whatever the patent is for, but it seems wrong to allow inventors to hold a monopoly over the use of what they made.

For example, Mason references the medicine situation I touched upon in my last post. Western companies that own patents for medicines sell their goods to developing countries at Western prices. The majority of people can’t afford the medicine at the prices it is offered at, but there is no cheaper alternative. The cheaper alternative can’t be made because the major company won’t let others copy its precious, patented formula. So thousands die, unless pirates come to the rescue. Patent pirates just don’t care about what the company thinks is important (i.e. their profits), so they risk everything by making copies of the big brand medicine and sell it for an affordable price. And you thought piracy was a bad thing.

What does this mean? Well it certainly shows how committed the health industry is to protecting health. Drug companies clearly don’t make drugs just to help people. They make drugs for the paycheck, and the whole “betterment of humanity” thing is just a side effect that helps them sleep at night. After being revealed, certain drug companies dropped their prices by 80% when selling medicines to developing nations. By doing so, they made their product more competitive. When there are cheaper alternatives, people will buy those. So the big companies dropped their prices. The fact that they shed 80% of the price tag is one thing, but the intentions are another entirely. Drug companies were made to look bad, and they lost money. So to fix it, they drop their prices in an attempt to fit in. Not only do they appear to have realized their wrongs, but they can start making money again. They can’t lose!

This post is not about piracy - Post # 10

I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again. I’m perfectly aware of how much of a snore that last post was. I don’t know what’s happened. I think the veneer of blog writing rubbed off. The first few posts were great. Remember Pointy Things? I loved that. Writing these posts has become a chore. It hurts to admit that. I made the last post because I realized that I had to submit a total of 12 posts with only 10 readings to write about. Now I’m running out of time and I have to write this one and two more. I’m not confident that they will be my best work. I still have to decide what I’ll write about for my last post, which I don’t have any readings to supplement. I hope my readers, and especially my evaluator, won’t mind if I use that opportunity to discuss some of the internal debates on ethics that I’ve been having throughout this course. Without further ado, I present my next blog post. Don’t get excited, I have low expectations for the next few posts.

This post is about piracy…

What an awful way to start a blog entry, especially when the topic is actually interesting. I read the chapter and everything, but with the mood I’m in, I think piracy is going to have to wait until the next entry. Just like that, this just turned into a completely different blog post, right before your eyes!

This post is not about piracy.

I recently joined Twitter. There’s a link on the right side of this blog. I’ve noticed that among the trending topics, #thingsthatpissmeoff is there pretty regularly. Sure enough, I just checked and it’s not there. The point I wanted to make, but which now seems pointless, is that the #thingsthatpissmeoff trend pisses me off. It’s just a series of people complaining about the dumbest things. For example:

“Old crusty people taking up space on the highway in rush hour traffic is on the top of my list…” – Nathan Riddell.

I have no idea who this Nathan Riddell is, but I don’t like him. If the elderly in traffic are at the top of your list of things that anger you, where does that leave things like Monsanto completely monopolizing farming or governments supporting corporations that have complete control over the media (I’ll talk about Monsanto in my next post). Stuff like that makes me really angry, and they’re not even on Mr Nathan Riddell’s list. They can’t be, or else “crusty old people” wouldn’t be at the top.

I’m trying to figure out exactly why things like the Monsanto situation make me angry. One reason is that I can’t stand the fact that humans can ignore the throes of death in order to preserve their own bottom line. How fucking sick do you have to be to watch calmly as thousands of your fellow human beings shrivel to a lifeless, bloody pulp at your feet because:

            You wouldn’t sell them the medicine they need.

            No-one can grow food without paying you first.

            You’re pumping oil into their backyard.

            You won’t tell anyone about the genocide going on.

The worst thing is that I’m doing this, too. I’m supporting the people (do they deserve that title) who condone the murder of millions of people by using their medicine, eating their food, driving their cars and being ignorant to the plight of others. I line the pockets of greedy, awful people, and it makes me sick. I am actually nauseous right now, just thinking about it. (It could have been the awful mac and cheese I had for lunch, but the poetic side of me says that my current gastro-intestinal instability is being caused by my conscience.)

That’s why I’ve been struggling with assignments these last few weeks: I’ve been struggling with myself for these last few weeks. A lot of things, including this course, have turned my concept of humanity on its head. I’ve been doing everything in my power to observe and take in content from a variety of sources, and my work has been suffering. I’ve been focussed on input rather than output. While others are frustrated that I’m not doing “work”, I know that something way more important is going on. I’m gobbling up ideas and concepts from everywhere, and I’m chewing on them very carefully and very slowly. I think it’s called learning, and I’m not ready to make a conclusion just yet. In the mean time, I’ll make more blog entries.

Social Networking and Participatory Surveillance - Blog Post # 9 - Week 10 Pt 2

Anders Albrechtslund strikes me as slightly more optimistic than Zimmer in the last article I examined. You can read Albrechtslund’s article here. Don’t misunderstand me though; Albrechtslund is just as aware of the privacy concerns that many have about the web. The difference between the two is that while Zimmer examines the need for monitoring and aggregation of data and the privacy concerns associated with that, Albrechtslund is instead considering the empowering and playful nature of participatory surveillance. In my head, I imagine Zimmer saying “Watch out!” while Albrechtslund says “Hey look, isn’t this neat!”. I have to say, I associate far more with Albrechtslund.

A lot of online privacy concerns occur in a manner that combines both the virtual and physical world. For example, a naïve teen posting a status that says “Dominican with the whole family for 2 weeks”, they have essentially invited thieves into their home. Albrechtslund makes the point that social networking needs to incorporate both the physical and virtual world in order to be successful. It is by isolating the virtual world that people put themselves at risk – actions online often have real-world consequences. The once mega-popular site MySpace gave users a sense of owning a space online. The problem is that the space allotted to each user is a bit like a bedroom with glass walls. Everything in the room is visible and should be presented as such. Users need to realize that the advancing social web is increasing the amount of required accountability. Using social networking sites eliminates the protection of anonymity, which too many take for granted.

Albrechtslund talks about invisible audiences – the people who access your information despite without you intentionally revealing it to them. The intended audience is not always the actual audience. Therefore, users must be prepared for anyone online to read their information. Users cannot assume that the intended recipient will be the sole recipient. Therefore, posting any sort of delicate information online is dangerous. Internet users need to become acquainted with how sharing information in the virtual world can have repercussions in the physical world. Instead of blaming the evil interwebs for identity theft, it is more appropriate to blame those who make their information available for people to take advantage of. This reminds me of the whole “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The difference between guns and the web is that guns were made for only one purpose, and it certainly isn’t sharing.

Sometimes, it isn’t a user’s fault that their information gets into the wrong hands. A testimonial from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre goes to show that banks are slimy gits who can’t take responsibility for ruining lives. This kind of thing irks me to no end.