Liveblog:
Our corporate-owned Internet
Wed, May 20, 2015 at 7:43 AM by Dave Winer ☮.
  • Dylan Tweney writes about how corporations have taken over the Internet, and wonders why it is this way. He suggests perhaps that it's that the user experience created by corporations is better than what is created by individuals developing for art and love, rather than money.
  • I don't think it's true that the user experience is better one way or the other. But it is easier to make money in a closed environment, so the money seeks out deals that have lock-in. So corporate development is better funded, generally, than open development.
  • Also the press correlates money and goodness. If you're so smart why aren't you rich, seems to be the philosophy. So they expect better products from rich people, that's why people flock to Medium, when they could have the same experience outside it. The well-funded corporate products get publicity, an equally good or better open product developed by individuals, those are generally ignored.
  • It's sad, because the opportunities to get rich wouldn't exist without open technology to build on. We go through cycles in tech, great progress is made quickly based on open tech, then comes the period when the resources are sucked up by money, then there's a bust, and another period of creativity. We haven't learned to smooth things out by always funding a certain amount of creativity no matter how much money is falling from the sky.
  • One thing Dylan could do to help, btw, is make a point of calling attention to excellent open software that does what corporate-owned systems do. Help the open web by telling people about it.