Personal observations.


Blogroll
Sharing Our Spaces
Oklahoma Observer
CarTalk
Esther's Photos
Where's Esther
ec-432
OKBID.ORG
Oklahoma Economics

 
Doc Searls rants about this NYTimes article today. In the article Matt Richtel claims that the "always-on" world of the Internet may be addictive. Doc's point is made by comparing the network with other forms of media. Nothing of interest is on TV. Very little of value is on the radio. Magazines and newspapers are filled with content you don't want. The value of the Internet is that the user is in control. We get to control the news feed.

His blog on this point has drawn several comments.

Yesterday he issued a challenge to Dean, Edwards (and the rest). He challenged them to get 100% behind the end-to-end design of the Internet. He was referring to this piece by Lawrence Lessig in which Lessig asks regulators to help defend the "neutrality" of the Internet. He points out how different our world would be if our highways were owned by private companies and we had to pay to use them all. What if the electricity grid, he asks, supplied reliable power only to Panasonic TVs? This idea of a neutral platform is critical to the continuation of innovation and invention surrounding the Internet.

This neutrality is a result of the choice to put almost all of the "intelligence" of the Internet at the ends. The backbone is pretty dumb. Its the end units that do the processing. Some have suggested the Internet could be improved by moving some of the intelligence into the middle. When Tim Berners-Lee wanted to create what became the World Wide Web he didn't have to ask permission to use the Internet because TCP/IP is designed to allow just about anything to move over it.

Doc's challenge to the candidates was to come out strong in favor of the current system. It is the foundation on which the amazing progress of the 90s took place.
posted by Unknown at 11:28 PM