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Name: Jason
From: Arizona
Bio: CEO of Computer Company, Been in Industry for 11 years. Been using internet from 1200 baud.
Area of Expertise: Entrepreneur/Business Leader
Topic: Controversial Issues
Headline: A Grim, Uniform Future
Nutshell: The internet is becoming more and more a puppet of the big companies and the content owners as more and more of the General Population log-on.
Vision:At the beginning of the internet, I thought it was awesome, but, as with any popular and good thing, when more people start to use it the quality goes down. I am not talking quality of the infrastructure – that is always getting better – I mean quality of the experience of the internet.
The internet is a disruptive and cannibalizing technology with the power to destroy many different business models and the general way that society operates, much like the car and the airplane were.
It is disruptive to the world of content providers, advertising, communications, mass media, and even the ability to stop people of low power from making a difference.
The internet has the potential to revolutionize all of these areas and more. Just look at what VoIP will do to old-style phone companies over the next decade; they will almost be gone!
But with any such thing people in power try to control it, they try to pass laws, I bet everyone reading this has done at least one thing online that is not legal anymore. We are making the citizens into criminals due to bad laws. We need to rethink how copyrights work in our society.
The cannibalization of the advertising media has made people much more “ad-proof,” making it much harder to sell anyone anything, these companies have intruded the lives of everyone by pushing unwanted ads and spying on people without them knowing, all in the name of better understanding their customer. This must be stopped. If the corporations get protection for their content they should at least protect their customers also, but companies such as Real and AOL abuse their customers all the time.
In the near future, the internet will be very controlled – it is already hard for a small publisher to be listed in a search without resorting to tricks. Many ISP’s are already blocking some actions of users, and most block many or all ports that they think people should not use.
With the roll-out of Trusted Computing I see most all freedom eroded because much of what goes on will not because there will be locks and NO anonymous users. Soon you will be forced to follow the rules and act like the other millions of people who are limited in what they can do. Soon the internet will just be a place to shop, chat and look for information for a price, and that will be a sad, sad day.
Date Submitted: November 11, 2004
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