After reading through the class articles from “After the Dotcom Crash” to “Past and Future History of the Internet,” I have to admit that technology and the internet itself is a changing pattern that not only affects a certain group of people but it can also affect businesses and can change the actions of governments.
The capitalist internet: “After the Dotcom Crash” article explains how the early internet investors were greedy businessmen that only cared about profits. They didn’t care about the rules (if there were any) and lost touch with reality. However, what we tend to ignore is that this is a cycle. In a capitalist nation, businessmen tend to become greedy when they see a new innovation that could change the way business is handle. This happened during the Industrialization Revolution during the 18th and 19th century. Monopoly was seen everywhere in the United States during such period of time: from steel companies to the textile industry. During such time, they were unstoppable until the government was able to take action. Today, this is what we’re seeing through the internet. Is it something too big to stop? The internet is not control by one major player. The internet is everywhere and depending where you are, the internet might be control by multiple parties. After being publicly introduced, the creators and major internet computer scientists lost the battle against new-comers. Such progress has not only expanded our economy, but many have lost. It is still a competition between companies on who can attract the most. Companies will keep investing on new technological revolutions even though it has been proven that is a risk. Companies have changed their business patterns and have to become part of the new technological evolution. Those who don’t accept to be part of will be left behind. Society will keep changing and our culture as well. From the Enlightenment Era to the Information Era we’re living at this moment we are becoming part of the changes of improving and sharing our knowledge as never seen before.
The “History of the Internet and its Flexible Future” provides an insightful thought as to where our society is heading because of the internet. It is not only based on the history of the internet, but how we as the users have shaped it and will keep shaping it. It has being a source of communication through emails, video conferences easy and faster information sharing and above all making a worldwide connection to everyone and everything. The creation of wireless or radio wave signals has also brought a sense of a development that has brought many to think where we’re heading next. A vision of the flexible future is more than just the connection between man and computer, it is also a connection between our society as a whole and the effects the internet is having in our lives. It is something as described in the article that is just part of a bigger beginning.
The psychology we find behind the mass (users) and the internet is controlled by individuals that want to be part of something bigger. It is more of a silent mass that is behind computers that want to let political parties and corporations know that even though physically they can’t be involve or can’t be part of their organization they can do it through the new internet mass. They can create their own visual world in a click of a mouse, but now we are also seeing the internet is “governed by big telecoms, entertainment conglomerates and state, which will try to control and regulate access and content,” as described in the “Mass psychology of internet” article. The internet’s main purpose began with the military and universities and now it belongs to everyone.
The internet will keep growing and as Geert Lovink described on his article, the internet is becoming a competition between businesses. These businesses can have an effect our lives through their websites or links on social networks such as facebook. An example of the increase of advertisements can be found on smartphone applications. These applications are loaded with more advertisements than you could find on a newspaper. The user sometimes does not have control over this. However, this is the sense that we get when we describe a more globalized and connected world. We can’t expect our privacy to stay private forever. Great inventions have been created to maintain such dream of connectivity and sharing true. From radio waves to smartphones and computers, anything could be possible. The psychological effect of such innovations is that we want to create a digital visual world that leads us to ignore what really is happening on the real world.
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