Even though it’s coming late, this is the final installment of my, “Life in the Cloud” series. In this last, but certainly not least, post, I will provide a criticism of Web 2.0 and cloud computing and raise some questions and implications about the future of the Internet. Before I begin, I just want to thank you all for your comments and suggestions. You really helped make this series what it was.
A Disruptive Innovation
Just as the Ford Model-T changed the world of transportation and provided a new solution and opportunity for getting around, the Internet has changed the way humans interact with information. More specifically, Web 2.0 has created new ways of communicating and sharing information and ideas among individuals, groups, and the public. The Internet has created a new landscape, a “cloud” landscape in which people can innovate in. The Internet disrupts our lives; it has virtually no hierarchy and unlike the modern world of professionals and specialty, it has become easy for every-day people to create, communicate, and develop ideas on the web. The Internet is an incredibly open and decentralized system. One of the main functions and purposes of the Internet is to be transparent – governments, corporations, and individuals use it to show themselves and expose what was once hidden. Today, people live-blog their lives on Twitter and publicly share family moments on YouTube.
Questions
I will briefly present three major issues I have with Web 2.0 and cloud computing.
Trust/Privacy – Every day, I essentially set free hundreds of thoughts and small personal innovations; I send emails to family, tweet my happenings to strangers, and comment on photos of my friends. I live an Internet life parallel to my, well, “real” life. Who owns all of this information? Is it still mine? Since I don’t own and control each website, server, and connection I use each day, I have lost control of my digital life. Ever since Wired published a series about Radical Transparency and the “See Through CEO,” I have tried my best to embrace similar ideals. But it is not easy – I struggle with this exposure every day. As primarily private, autonomous, and self-directed beings, should we really feel comfortable letting vital parts of our own existence out of our own hands?
Quality of Information – Critics of Web 2.0 cite the increasing amount of “unproductively” and bad and inaccurate content that plagues the web (just look at YouTube). Using modernist ideas of truth and quality and relying on ancient ideas about the difference between high (scholarly) and low (popular) culture does not work on the Internet. In order to wholly and truly embrace the Internet, we must abandon our previous opinions about truth, accuracy, and hierarchy. The web should be a new space, not an old one. We must redefine public and private. In order to believe in the future of the Internet and human interaction, we must redetermine the meaning of ownership and copyright.
Access – A big part of Web 2.0, if you’ve been keeping up, is being able to reliably store data on the Internet only and not rely on local copies. This is, sadly, still an unrealistic idea. Not enough people are able to access with freedom the entire Internet wherever they are and not enough places (businesses, schools, governments, etc) are equipped to “handle” the Internet. Open wireless standards are not yet global, and wired and wireless Internet is still not as wide spread as it should be. Smart Phones are attempts to close this gap, but again, the price is too high and the freedom doesn’t exist (not in the United States, at least). Again, to truly embrace the Internet,access should not be an accessory – it should be mandatory. As we move forward, we must be careful about how we use this access, but it is an important part of the future of computing. The Internet must be considered critically and seriously as a life-impacting technology. The true potential of the Internet is not yet being embraced.
In Conclusion
Thank you for bearing with me. This post has turned into more of a manifesto, but I hope it inspires more questions than it answers. This does not signify the end – I will continue to write, think, and invent. Please be in touch.
K.
Kabren Levinson is fist-year student at Bard College. Throughout high school, Kabren has worked in various technological, political, and artistic positions. He has worked as an intern at the MIT Media Lab Computing Culture Group and during his senior year of high school, he developed an Academic Technology program at the Cambridge School of Weston. He has been podcasting for over three years and has been blogging for two. Kabren is a philosopher, technologist, and artist.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Kabren,
Very thoughtful post. To me, point #1 is the really scary one, as so much seems to be buried in fine print. I wonder especially how this will impact future generations.
Pondering point #2 re: quality – is this an issue of cloud or accessibility? i.e. the more people have the ability to create and distribute content the less curated the space is, and the more data/content we produce, making it harder to fact check, etc…?
–Amrita
Great post, Kabren, the issue of ownership will come to haunt us all at some point in the future.
Regarding the following:
“Not enough people are able to access with freedom the entire Internet wherever they… Open wireless standards are not yet global, and wired and wireless Internet is still not as wide spread as it should be. Smart Phones are attempts to close this gap, but again, the price is too high and the freedom doesn’t exist (not in the United States, at least).”
These are things I wrote a lot about for my CellRev.com project, as they are indeed uniquely North American perspectives. Here, there is an almost universal understanding amongst consumers that mobile devices are NOT a necessity. Because of this, we have a wireless industry that operates on the assumption that nobody NEEDS a mobile device, justifying the existence of an exclusively privatized ecosystem with no universal standards or regulatory bodies. Because of this attitude, devices are expensive and limited for commercial gain and operators provide poor services for high prices.
In all the other continents, especially Asia, the attitude is that mobile devices are a necessity – a utility – just as important as clean water and electricity. The result of this is cooperation between private industry and governments across boarders. In these continents the vast majority of people have open access to the internet through a mobile connection, regardless of social class or geographical location. Mobile devices and networks are built for the masses and most importantly, standards and regulations are enforced to ensure access for all. So in conclusion, I agree with you that internet access is a problem, but only in North America, where we are becoming ever more isolated in both thought and technology as the rest of the world steams ahead with connecting their populations to each other and the world.
Thanks for your comments!
Amrita, yeah, I think it’s about the volume and redefining our notions of what is considered “real” and “true.” Quite a philosophical dilemma, actually.
Mark – Yeah. I think that the thought isolation is particularly worrisome – has to do with access to mainly education (that’s where all this _really_ roots, even though they it is a problem with technology, it comes from where we learn how to use them). I mean, at this point, we cannot (in the US) even connect with our neighbors. That’s how isolated we’re becoming.