By Michael Baxter 8 Feb 2010 [2 Comments | 503 views]
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There is this theory knocking around that we may be entering a new, somewhat sad world on the Internet.
The Internet is quite a beast. It’s uncontrollable and unpredictable and it has thrown up some extraordinary ideas – it is much like the latter day equivalent of the Wild West. But could that era be set to end? There are a number who think it may.
Did you know that George Orwell’s 1984 was removed from Amazon’s Kindles after the company grew concerned over the licensing arrangement for the book. Rather apt that. Orwell’s book conjured up this image of a, well, of an Orwellian future. Instead, the Internet seemed to create the precise opposite, a world in which people are able to express whatever views they want. Instead of tyranny, we got anarchy.
And yet, there are rumblings, maybe Orwell is chuckling in his grave. Are things set to change?
First to come under the media’s spotlight is Apple. People love Apple. Its users think the Sun shines out of the iPod’s interface, and that Steve Jobs walks on water.
But Apple is all about proprietary. It always has been. And now the company controls who writes apps for the iPhone and who doesn’t. The new iPad is not compatible with Adobe Flash.
Today in the FT in a piece by Joanathan Zittrain headlined ‘A fight over freedom at Apple’s core’, and on CNNMoney, see ‘End of the Web as we know it, thanks to iPad and others’, Apple has got something of a hammering.
As the FT piece said “An e-mail reader was denied access because it competed with Apple’s own Mail app. Imagine if Microsoft’s Bill gates had decreed that no word processor but Word would be allowed run on the Windows operating system.” The article went on to talk about Microsoft losing its anti trust legal cases. Yet Apple seems to want just as much control. “We define everything that is on the phone” said Steve Jobs, when describing the company’s policy towards iPhone apps.
But it is not just Apple. Rupert Murdoch is determined to fight against free content on the ‘Net. He wants to charge for all content, and he has a powerful ally in Microsoft. Meanwhile, the Tories have suggested they plan to change the BBC’s remit, with much of the licence fee money be used to fund a new super fast broadband network. The BBC provides the single biggest threat to Murdoch’s plans. He has repeatedly moaned about the BBC’s unfair advantage. But it is not the case, that the BBC still produces superb content? Change the BEEB by much, and the Brits will be worse off.
Even Wikipedia is changing. In some ways it has become a victim of its own success. And now content on the site is controlled by a select few. Anarchy is changing to tyranny.
Guy Hands is going for a £100 million cash call for EMI. The company has received a lashing at the hands of the Internet.
But the question we need to ask is this. Is the consumer better or worse off thanks to free content? Music has surely become more varied, and is much improved from the bad old days when the industry was controlled by a handful of companies. The consumer is better informed that ever before.
Google is slated for its supposed invasion of privacy and its move to put books on its site for free, but at least Google stands for the old style Internet.
We are moving to a position in which the interests of consumers and traditional business are not the same. If consumers can access more products and better products for less money they benefit. But such a product offering is a disaster for traditional media and software companies.
Imagine this scenario. Imagine someone invents a new car which is safer, more comfortable and more fuel efficient than most other cars, but through some miracle of technological innovation costs only a tiny amount of money to produce. Clearly consumers would be better off, and in the long run so would the economy as resources would be freed up to focus on other aspects of wealth creation. But traditional car makers would be the losers and they would no doubt fight such an innovation.
The story above about this miracle car is fiction. But we are seeing a real life battle between the interests of consumers and traditional business being fought right now on the battle fields of cyber space. And traditional business has been wining recent skirmishes.
Reference to your “miracle car”..didn’t someone improve exhaust systems quite a number of years ago using stainless steel? They WERE VERY expensive but, of course, less so these days. I seem to recall suggestions of “putting exhaust manufacturers out of business”; “no requirement for replacements or the guys that fit them”. Clearly this hasn’t happened and “traditional car makers” ought to embrace speedier development toward your “miracle car” – for all our sakes.
Apple was my first computer. The buzz soon wore off and I moved to the mainstream. Any one who locks themselves into an evolutionary cul de sac like Apple today is a dinosaur. It looks pretty & trendy, it is a product for trendies. When the trend is over, the product will fail, the roller coaster of consumer buzz will not sustain a product that seeks to lock out access of choice. George Orwell does not rule in 2010.
Apple, along with Apricot, & all the other marques that seek to lock the consumer into their private world, are dinosaurs.