Slaves to IT
We are participating in a revolution, whether or not you want to. Its a revolution that will impact on our future with almost the same magnitude as running out of oil and global warming. Actually that’s a bit of an overstatement, global warming could completely fuck us all, to paraphrase a green expression there is no ANYTHING without an environment.
Back to IT. A couple of ongoing developments have me wondering. A number of years ago when the web was still in nappies and getting a 56k modem was the pinnacle of nerdsville, the public network infrastructure was chaotic. A lot of it was piggy backing on research backbones or using spare capacity that owners couldn’t otherwise give a toss about. Volunteer organisations ran access sites, garages gave birth to empires. Advocates for the web were crying out for commercial investment in high speed links, rightly pointing out how much the market would grow when capacity started to catch up to the technology in other areas. At that time, I recall a few expressions of concern regarding the threats to freedom of information and ideas that an invasion of big money might entail, but most of these worries initially failed to materialise.
This is not unlike smoking. Big tobacco companies have profited hugely from the death and disease their product causes. Billions of dollars winding their way into the pockets of a few rich people, meanwhile millions of people dead, dying and addicted. But at its core is a little illusion, smoking one cigarette wont kill you. It makes you sick for sure, but the initial reaction passes. Afterwards you feel pretty much the same so on a personal experience level, it is a little hard to imagine how smoking could be as evil as some people make out, especially when you consider how many cool and successful people are seen to be smoking. The problem of course is our capacity for self delusion and the extremely addictive nature of nicotine. The personal rationalisation becomes one of “it won’t hurt me that much and it satisfies the monkey on my back” meanwhile billions of dollars are being made, percolating their way through governments addicted to the revenue and retailers dependent on the turnover into the hands of a few huge multinational corporations.
Ok, IT won’t kill you or make you sick. Its a good thing in that regard. But it is increasingly controlled by some powerful vested interests who ultimately don’t care about you the user other than your capacity to pay. Now these interests are starting to flex some of their muscle and it isn’t just in setting a price. One of the hallmarks of Big Tobacco (like Big Oil) is how it has corrupted governments and misled the public. I mean, how does any government really justify allowing nicotine products on the market given the weight of medical evidence against it? Not only do they continue to allow tobacco companies to peddle their drug, they collect huge tax windfalls which is surely nothing less than protection money. As for the smokescreen of lies and misinformation, the tobacco companies wrote the book. Unfortunately almost all of this isn’t in the public interest, but our societies are addicted to problem.
Look now at the some of the ways vested interests and governments are interacting to control IT - Information Technology. First out of the blocks is of course our old friend Microsoft, the company guilty of monopoly behaviour in the US and Europe. A naive punter might be willing to accept that Bush’s victory in the US has nothing to do with the collapse of action against Gates and co, but it defies common sense. Bush is well known for his sympathies for big business, so when the new government dropped proceeding against Microsoft it was really no surprise. The 2001 decision was really an affront for big business who had already succeeded with their aspirational DMCA laws. These laws in effect legalised the bullying behaviour of the RIAA as they acted to protect their assets from the evils of the internet. These laws pretty much turn most net citizen into criminals and not just for the heinous act of sharing music. Not to be deterred by a little bad press, the momentum for more legal control over the internet is gathering force with a more draconian set of DMCA like laws proposed for Canada.
Meanwhile Microsoft’s domination of the desktop market is continuing to pay dividends as it moves into other businesses. As traditional TV companies scramble to defend their platform from the threat of another medium stealing their audience, it is hardly surprising to see broadcasters hop into bed with someone who promises them the world, even when it fails miserably to provide a fair and reasonable service to the public. There is plenty of criticism of the BBC move here and there are reports that adoption rates are pretty ordinary as well.
Both of these developments suggest a possible trend where governments and business act in concert to protect each others interests at the expense of things like freedom of expression. Individually each little act seems harmless, collectively they may well lead us to a situation where dissent is stymied and society controlled, ultimately in the interests of the rich elite.
When people worried about the erosion of civil liberties at the dawn of the internet, many of us placed our faith in the pace of change and the diversity of ideas to protect our freedoms. Its a bit like smoking a cigarette when you are 2o because you are young and indestructable and suddenly waking up at 50 with terminal lung cancer. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.