On Sun, 2007-10-14 at 11:46 -0700, Lucas Gonze wrote: > 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.
Okay, I can see where you are coming from. There is no doubt that there are disturbing trends (and certainly myspace counts here, maybe youtube too), but I believe proper P2P can be used to disrupt such trends. In a broader social context it is indeed silly to think P2P can somehow sweep in, decentralizing and distributing all communication away from corporate control. But I do believe P2P can play an important role in making sure those avenues remain open for those who wish to find and use them. At the end of the day, I think it's largely up to us. I think it's a two pronged fight: at the same time we're developing algorithms and software to enable unrestricted communication, we must also be pushing in the political realm to make sure the avenues we need stay open. Part of that, as slow and tiring as it may be, is social education. Otherwise, as you say, many of the principles the founders of the Net held dear will remain outside the mainstream. Cheers, Cyrus _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
