is the internet another case of bait n switch?

Posted:
in AppleOutsider edited January 2014
..something sold to us as a free place for the exchange of information, that's rapidly morphing into pay for services? If so, how do we categorize the massive amounts of public money that went into it, and likkely still do.



I went to Mapquest today for the first time in ages. Where you used to have the option of magnifying the map to see surrounding areas, all you see now are adverstisements for business in the area.



At the NY Times, more and more articles that used to be free for the 1st seven days after publication are now categorized Times select, a fee subscription service. First it was just the star writers, now it's moving out to the next level (articles with capitivating topics), soon the whole site will charge for entry. Once that happens other papers will follow (I'm sure they're watching the Times closely).



I'm thinking of the day when all internet access --to the sites as well as the pipeline--will be pay as you go. The problem with that is the same as toll highways--people on the margins are eventually forced off the precipice. It's a pretty Darwinian approach for a country that rejects Darwin!



The counterbalance has been the low cost of opening a website. Which is why I expect in the next few years those costs to rise tremendously, as well as the costs to transmit information. Eventually we'll see the same thing with the net as we saw with radio--the migration to an industry dominated by big companies with deep pcokets.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Are you completely unaware of how the world in which we live works?
  • Reply 2 of 6
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by segovius View Post


    Just in case he is, here's the lowdown:



    1) A bunch of sick scumbags are running the show.



    2) Naturally they don't want anyone to know this but they also want to spread their disease because they have a psychotic neuroses called "FEAR".



    3) This fear is of 'things different' so they must make everyone - and everything - as uniform as possible.



    4) Those that do not submit are lied about, threatened, jailed and killed. In that order.



    Actually it never really gets to number two even because most people are completely on-side (see soon to be posted threads for examples).



    5) Once safely conditioned, the hapless victims of these scum are subject to a process called 'CONTROL' - this prevents them from waking up and essentially is a means of extracting from them something called 'cash' which is actually a fictitious token which the 'citizens' have been convinced to trade in their lives for on an hourly basis.



    In return they are allowed to purchase 'things' and to claim they have something called 'FREEDOM'.



    Then they die and the same process is applied to their descendants.



    So, that's how the world works....



    That would be incredibly funny if it were not absolutely 100% true.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Of course, the brave rebels like segovius who claim to see through the puppet show, who proclaim they are "awake", are actually the most nefarious agents of the puppet show.



    Uh... there was a question about the internet?
  • Reply 4 of 6
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ptrash View Post


    ..something sold to us as a free place for the exchange of information, that's rapidly morphing into pay for services? If so, how do we categorize the massive amounts of public money that went into it, and likkely still do.




    It was NEVER EVER free as in no $ cost: it was and is free for social experssion as it is he cheapest form of mass media ever invented: in fact with services like BlogSpot Flikr Digg, YouTube and Myspace, it is less expencive than ever as an average joe can express themselves online without the crud that many early adopters went through, like setting up servers and modems just to push out a page of text-only musings.



    The mainstream tv/print/radio media has been terified of the net untill 2 years ago, There are sort of 2 internets: there is the commercial internet and the "wild west" internet on the same network.



    If these extream packet preference schemes that the bells are dreaming up now were feasible, they would have done it 5 years ago.



    The thing to be afraid of is the government: he schools and libraries are killing the "wild west net" by blocking, inadvertantly r otherwise, tons of little sites social and political alike are getting blocked in the name of "PROTECRING THE CHILDREN!!!1!1!111!!!"That is what is to be feared.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    ptrashptrash Posts: 296member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Are you completely unaware of how the world in which we live works?



    Although others have since posted their own replies to your question, why don't you enlighten me? (BTW, if that was that a rhetorical tactic I'd have expected you to have already done so!)
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