> On Sun, 2007-10-14 at 10:01 -0700, Lucas Gonze wrote:
>> The users could care less about self-determination. Their
>> only goal is to make the pain of understanding how to use the computer
>> go away. They not only don't care about whether they are empowered or
>> fucked over by a technology provider, they don't even have the concept
>> of empowerment.
and Cyrus Hall responded:
> In all seriousness, do you truly believe consumers enjoy getting shit
> on? Because the core principle of most basic economic theories is that
> consumers rebel against just those situations.
...
> I see no indication in the content wars that are now being unleashed on
> the web space that consumers enjoy getting screwed over. Every time the
> recording labels have pushed a DRMed storefront, it's failed.
I think the consumers are so used to getting shit on that they're
grateful when a vendor bothers to flush afterward.
Consumers not only don't know the word "DRM", they don't even know the
concept. They are only acquainted with DRM via the bugs and malfeatures
it introduces on the rare occasions when they venture into an
RIAA-blessed ecommerce operation, and if those were in a more tolerable
shape (as they are when you stay 100% inside the Apple product stack)
then they'd be fine with it.
My worry is the self-determination via decentralization that the
internet was founded on was a one-time thing. Only the founding
generation (which includes many of us) truly owned those issues. From
here on out those founding principles will be pieties understood by few
and considered by the many to be ridiculous and annoying. Our
conversations on the topic will become artifacts for historians and
fussy wonks.
What makes me so gloomy is how accepting the users are with the rise of
fortresses like Myspace. Messaging within Myspace and other fortresses
completely disables email interoperability, and that's more than fine
with the users. A third party spider can't see most of what's in there.
The TOS and almost everything else about the place is custom and not
interoperable. Data is migrating from open standard HTML to opaque
proprietary Flash. And the users have absolutely no problem with this.
So, yeah, I think the armies of Mordor are doing pretty well lately.
-Lucas
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