Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
That takes us into a very important, but perhaps distracting tangent
to this discussion, Craig. In this case, as in several cases that
come to mind, we seem to have modeled our vision of capitalism as
one of extraction - those with power extract from those with less
power, and who cares about all of the externalities, be they mining
slag or people without healthcare.

I'd argue that, at a minimum, we have an opportunity to insist that
more of those externalities belong to the companies and/or that as a
society, we find other ways to ensure that "gig" workers have a
living wage, access to healthcare, etc. Both are hard sells in
American society, so I'm not sure which direction might ultimately
lead to change, or even which might give us transitional change that
makes things less destructive and opens the door to more
experimentation - because that's ultimately what we need, I think.
Room to experiment without taking the costs of that experiment out
on the lives of the poorest and less able to push back.
  

    
Yes. Experimentation is key -- Ben makes that point in his book, and
I agree. But there also needs to be a sense of direction. And some
way to measure progress. We can see that experiments in networking
with a social bent extend all the way back to before ARPANET and TCP.

And yet, we've never heard of the vast majority of such efforts. That's
because attracting attention often involves significant costs (even if
non-monetary). I recall the list of conferencing or collaborative
software that David Woolley maintained for many years. Back when you
weren't really a software developer unless you'd written a BBS or
text conferencing system. Too many to make use of... and finally too
many to keep track of.

Today, here's a Comparison of software and protocols for distributed
social networking:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_software_and_protocols_for_distrib
uted_social_networking>

Another big list with an even longer list of "Dead or stalled projects."

We're not lacking for experimentation -- something more is needed. An
ethical road-map, perhaps?
  

    
Or a political one. These aren't just issues that show up on the
tech side of life. These operate in most all of our systems these
days.

>> Online malls, whatever their particular entanglements, are
inequality machines. [T]hey reallocate the existing distribution of
risk and reward. They push risks downward and spread them around.
They pull rewards upward and focus them in fewer hands.

Just wanted to see that again. It's spot  on.
  

    
Page 129 ;-)
  

    
This conversation was scheduled for two weeks, through today, though
it's fine if participants want to continue posting. However I want
to take this opportunity to thank Ben, Ari, and all the other
participants here for your contributions!
  

    
Here are some final notes I have from the end of the book - Ben, if
you are still online, any final thoughts on your part?

---------------------

Follow up to "techlash".  Two tendencies: (1) write new rules about
how companies are allowed to behave/enforce existing laws, e.g., the
California Consumer Privacy Act, enacted in 2018, under influence
from the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation); and (2)
reduce the market power of big firms. Neither is perfect.

Note that introducing more competition for our time and attention
may increase the amount of personal data sloshing around.
Deprivatization may make more sense: "Making markets more regulated
or more competitive won't touch the deeper problem, which is the
market itself. The online malls are engineered for profit-making,
and profit-making is what makes them inequality machines. The
exploitation of gig and ghost workers; the reinforcement of racism,
sexism, and other oppressions; the amplification of right-wing
propaganda - none of these diverse forms of social damage would
exist if they weren't profitable.... The comparison that comes to
mind is the tragicomedy of coal companies embracing carbon capture:
it would be easier to simply stop burning coal."

What "deprivatization" means in this context is not clear. It will
take time and more experimentation. In large part this means an end
to "one mall wherein everything happens" to a diversity of
experiments. "Protocolizing" media, enables services such as
mastadon to exchange messages much the same way that gmail or Yahoo
mail exchange email messages. Does Tim Berners-Lee's "Solid" project
provide a way for individuals to take ownership of their own data in
ways that also help (although that doesn't, on its own, address the
activity data that companies accumulate - that would take
significant legislation).
  

    
Thanks everyone! I’ve enjoyed getting the chance to chat with you
all. And special thanks to Ari for guiding the discussion.

If there’s only one thing that I’d like people to take away from my
book, it’s the fact that there is nothing inevitable about the
internet that exists today. It’s the product of a particular
history. And that history consists of choices made by particular
human beings. Those choices didn’t take place in a void; they took
place within particular historical sets of constraints and
incentives. But their outcome wasn’t foreordained. At various
junctures, the internet went one way when it could have gone
another. And, overall, what has set the general direction of travel
of the modern internet has been the imperative to program the profit
motive into every layer of the network. This is the process that I
call privatization, and that’s why privatization is the main
character of my story.

I don’t expect all of my book’s readers to agree with my analysis of
where the internet’s problems come from, or my (admittedly
provisional) thoughts on how best to mitigate those problems. But if
I can help denaturalize the internet for my readers, if I can help
them understand that the internet didn’t have to become what it has
become, then I think I’ll have done enough.
  

    
Thank you, Ben.

For those who want to continue the discussion, this topic remains
open. If you are not a member of the WELL and want to add some
comments or your own, you can still send questions and comments to
inkwell at
well.com, and we'll post for you.

And onward! There is lots of work to be done.
  

    
Many thanks!
  

    
VERY late to the game, but belated thanks. 
  

    
One of the issues discussed in Ben's book is the need for
community-owned ISPs - the bottom of the stack. Here's a recent
report on making that work:
https://branch.climateaction.tech/issues/issue-4/cows/

cow = Community-Owned Wifi/mesh
  

    
Thanks for that.