Posted 6 years ago in the wee hours by oso
Note: This is a something I wrote nearly a month ago after reading a Jakarta Post article in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. For whatever reason I didn’t post it, but Elenita’s recent comments inspired me to.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet as we know it as well as HTML – the markup language with which we communicate – was awarded 1.2 million dollar cash prize for his work. In his acceptance speech he said that the World Wide Web succeeded because it was never approached as a commercial venture. “If I had tried to demand fees … there would be no World Wide Web. There would be lots of small webs.”
By small webs he means small proprietary networks which all communicate with each other in their own secret code. Essentially what a cell phone network is.
What is so revolutionary about the internet though is that its rapid evolution has been almost entirely not-for-profit. Not that there haven’t been the throngs of eager investors shelling out millions to self-proclaimed tech wizards, but that was called the IT crash. When you look on the internet today you will find tremendous public domain projects like the Wikipedia and Internet Archive and you will find a maze of decentralized thought and opinion in blogs like this one, but, save a few exceptions, you will not find successful commercial ventures.
Doesn’t this go against everything we’ve been taught about productivity? Why are so many people spending hours every day researching and writing pseudo-journalistic pieces on their blogs? Or just go to sourceforge.com – why are well trained computer scientists devoting sleepless nights coding free software projects under licenses for which they can never earn a cent? Where is the motivation coming from if not the paycheck?
I firmly believe that motivation to make money only lasts until one is financially comfortable and, more importantly, secure. By that I mean we are not worried that one day we will be out on the streets despite what we may be earning today. The reason that so many people horde wealth even after achieving self-sufficiency is because with it comes power and fame and people eager to hear what you have to say.
Ask any shopaholic and they will tell you that the pleasure that comes from a shopping spree lasts no longer than when the clothes have been put in the closet. I’ve come across enough miserable millionaires living in their La Jolla mansions and enough happy, giggling peasants working on farms throughout the developing world to tell you that financial contentment is based on a sliding scale. If you have ten dollars you will want more. If you have ten million, you will want more. Yes, being financially secure puts you at ease. No, it does not make you happy. (In fact, I would argue the opposite)
Most of these free software programmers and unpaid bloggers come from relatively well off households. Most of us are the suburban sons and daughters of the baby boomers, who have really never known what it is like to just get by. Most of us are well educated and intelligent (programming and even customizing a blog require at least some critical thinking), but have decided not to follow our peers into MBA, Law, and Engineering schools like our parents would have liked us to. In short, our professional horizons look dim.
But what if each of us, connected like never before (thanks to Tim Berners-Lee), are starting to slowly change the world? What if, in this day of global corporatism when maximizing profits means everything, we reveal a development paradigm uninterested in profit, but just as efficient? And without the bloody revolutions and stigma of the past.
Talk like this isn’t new. You could find a thousand bloggers constantly making the same argument. It is the cornerstone philosophy of the Free Software Foundation. Yet, as each month goes by I am more and more encouraged with the potential of actually making it happen. Here would be a good start:
- A National Free (taxpayer) Wireless Network throughout the United States – especially rural areas.
- Better laws against proprietary software companies (Microsoft for example) from stunting the growth of free software (Linux and Mozilla).
- Encouragement of Open Source Software, Code, and Biology. (the latter would be the most revolutionary as it would essentially nationalize the biotech sector. Which … would also mean that under-researched and unprofitable diseases like Malaria would receive due attention.)
- Free Voice over IP service meaning eventually, free phone calls.
If all that sounds confusing, what I’m arguing for is simply this: Communication, Information, and Health should all be free services offered by the government. People argue that free networks (like the radio is) would take away tens of thousands of jobs in the telecommunications industries. That’s great – send them overseas! Put up free wireless networks all throughout the world. Make it free to call someone in Iraq and ask them how the weather is today. I can guarantee you this, if we were all in constant communication with each other there would be far less reason to instigate war.
I couldn’t agree more.
It’s official. You’re a commie. Someone call the Homeland Security Dept!
Good thoughts, Oso.
Taking your thoughts in a slightly different direction–I believe part of the reason the Net has thrived so much is because no group(s) have been able to limit the actions of others. Pundits, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, personal bloggers have all been able to do whatever they want on the web; it’s been live and let live, with no one stepping on each other’s toes.
Granted, I’m oversimpifying here. But I sometimes wonder–as much as regulations protect us, they also make certain (complying) groups “right” and give them, by definition, a power than non-complying don’t have. On the web, that kind of power is never given to a particular group–and I sometimes think that contributes to the internet’s ability to be so diverse and be a place for exchanging information and ideas.
Yeah, I mean, just look at the most popular political bloggers. They’re nearly all conservatives. Which, to me, is ironic because many of them would have been in support of privatizing the web.
Yesterday’s LA Times had an article that sorta assumed all serious bloggers were pro-war conservatives.