The Web is wonderful. It gives such quick and easy access to information that might have taken me weeks or months to find ... a time barrier which, for many things, would have prevented me from even trying. And now, with a few simple clicks, I can link Maslow's pyramid of needs to Herzberg's maintenance/motivation criteria, link that to Erikson's psychosocial development, Leary's Rose of interpersonal relationships, etc. etc.
And then, of course, somebody says something to ruin it all, namely the idea that we might have to start paying for some of the more interesting stuff. Which runs contrary to the idea that many of us have had, namely that information should be free. For some people, in fact (and certainly Tim Berners-Lee, the CERN employee who offered his transfer protocol to the world for free) that is the very essence of the web: sharing information. To me, this feels totally natural. And I also think it is a good idea, at least in the long run. In a sense, it is like a sibling to the "market will sort things out" dogma. With the difference, of course, that the market dogma is a short-sighted egoistic brat who can only win if someone else loses, and who hates his too-good-to-be-true sister, who works towards consensus and cooperation. The market-minded people will try to squeeze every last dime out of us, the information highway hippies want to share everything.
Or am I being too black and white here?
You are being refreshingly black and white and I totally agree. The market-minded people have been trying their best to force their provider-consumer model onto the web, with rather meagre results. There is a revolution taking place in our society, a technologically driven one (is there another kind, I wonder?), and the market-minded people are a little bit too slow to realise that...
ReplyDelete