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Re: [ox-en] The Wealth of Networks



Hi Trebor and all!

Last month (58 days ago) trebor wrote:
The current state
of the tech economy is linked to the web-based sociomedia because they engage
the online many. The commons-based production that Benkler refers to is a huge
factor for the economy of the post-dot bomb era. What corporate 'futureneer'
O'Reilly calls Web 2.0 is not a fad. It's a novel architecture of participation
that pervades the WWW and that has to be reckoned with.

Web 2.0 is certainly a hype at the moment but nonetheless I think
there is some substance to it. Technically I see two main trends here:

* Browsers become universal frontends

  Browsers more and more become an replacement for classical desktop
  applications. The technology used here is called Ajax and currently
  is as much a hype as Web 2.0. On the other hand it only combines a
  couple of older technologies. Sometimes I think the term Ajax only
  gives a name to something possible for some time now and by naming
  it making it a topic.

* Stitching together applications

  This is the other main trend where applications are stitched
  together from (Web) services available in the Internet.

May be it can be combined in this old Sun motto "The network is the
computer" becoming true. Web services for instance are hyped for some
five years now to be a major breakthrough. So far at least in the
consumer world there were little substance to it.

In a way classical content like HTML did similar things in the static
domain which Web 2.0 starts doing in the dynamic domain. HTML links
together static resources and brings it to your desktop by browsers.
Now Web 2.0 links together dynamic resources and brings them to your
desktop - again by browsers - and gives you ways of interaction which
are new in the domain of browsers.

But yes, there is also that social aspect Trebor mentions above. May
be that's also simlar to the Web 1.0 phase of the Web. Web 1.0 made
available static resources for private persons - both, for consumption
and for production. Get a domain, put a web site on it and you are a
producer. Wikis and the like deliver this even without your own web
space. I guess this practical availability for many actually unleashed
the power of Web 1.0. Web 2.0 now starts to bring this power to
dynamic content.

Now, that most media critics think in the service of business: Where are those
who dedicate themselves to sustainable alternative models?

Oekonux of course ;-) .

But don't those engaging in thus alternative models dedicate
themselves to their sustainability at the same time?

I know, this is a
provocative claim (especially on this list) that would need some backup, but
perhaps that goes beyond the scope of my brief response. Is the attempt
for autonomy or alternative economic models done with and all endeavors are
merely hybrid? Will the few autonomous places all turn corporate anyway- online
and off?

Whether they *turn* corporate is IMHO a question of which type of
doing things delivers more quality / interesting things. If corporate
models can they will. If not they won't.

Youtube, Writely, Del.icio.us, large chunks of the blogosophere, you
name it... They all got sucked up by vulture capitalists.

Are they sucked up or isn't it more a combination of Freedom and
corporation?

May be the Free Software distributors are a similar phenomenon. They
earn money based on services around Free Software but they don't
*turn* Free Software into a corporate thing. Those which tried
(Caldera / SCO) are not successful.

So, perhaps it's time
to give up the purity thinking of autonomous zones and just acknowledge that it
all goes corporate, if only partially, anyway?

I have no problem with this. Time will sort out what works and what
not and if I'd not be confident that Free Endeavors have a large
potential I'd probably not stay here :-) .

If we accept that, then it's no
wonder that insightful media critics of our time commit themselves to what we
could call "oak panel theory," assisting the ebays and Googles of this world in
making more money by understanding that they can only do so in the cracks of a
commons that is increasingly reliant on peer production.

Isn't this how any major turn of eras comes about? The old still
exists but the new exists as well and it has niches where it is not
dependent on the old - probably because the old would contradict the
features of the new too heavily - and there are areas where it
co-exists. As well the old can co-exist with the new and use its
potential for its own purposes.

Personally today I think this is *really* how fundamental change comes
about historically. There may be something like a revolution at some
point but without that foundation being laid long before it will stay
a simple uprising with little consequences.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

--
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
and send out in the evening of the day it is written. It
does not take any information into account which may have
reached my mailbox since yesterday evening.

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de



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