IP: The Emotional Age of the Internet

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 20:17:27 GMT
From: dwiner () well com (DaveNet email)


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> From Scripting News... It's DaveNet! 
Released on 8/3/98; 1:14:22 PM PST
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  Oh the Internet! 
  
  I look back to the winter of 1996. I was bright-eyed and optimistic. 
  When the Communications Decency Act came out of Washington I 
  believed it was possible to counteract the forces of fear with sheer 
  numbers. 
  
  I organized a project, 24 Hours of Democracy, a large essay website, 
  to show that there were thoughtful people on the net who had dreams of a 
  new communication environment that would be more democratic, more 
  inclusive, more interesting. 
  
  The site is archived at: 
  
  <http://www.scripting.com/24/> 
  
  ***The mail list 
  
  AOL, a sponsor of the project, ran a mail list for people who were 
  participating. I requested that participants use the list to 
  coordinate work and express political opinions on their websites, 
  not on the mail list. 
  
  The purpose of the project was to show the power of the web, not the 
  power of email. My theory, then as now, is that the web is a far more 
  effective medium. People seem more careful about what they say. 
  
  As the guest-host of the mail list, I repeatedly asked the other 
  guests to stay on topic. Then the flames started coming directly at 
  me. No good deed goes unpunished, or so it seemed at the time. Would 
  these people behave this way if they were face to face at a meeting in 
  AOL's office? I doubt it. 
  
  In the middle of the attacks I kept thinking of the silent ones. People 
  who sit by, the majority of them, while a few people post message after 
  message selfishly venting their emotional stuff. 
  
  For example, when I posted an announcement that I would be off the list 
  for an indefinite period, I had been called for jury duty, the 
  discussion switched to a theory that the Clinton Administration had 
  arranged it to deprive them of their leader. This still makes sighhh. 
  It's so self-centered and unrealistically self-important. I 
  assured them that this was a ridiculous idea. I had received my notice 
  *before* the project started, but the paranoia continued. 
  
  I unsubscribed from the list, unceremoniously, as I feel it should be 
  done. Don't threaten, just do it. There's nothing more unpleasant 
  than the final fuck you from someone who acts as if the world revolves 
  around them. Just go. Quietly. Close the book and move on. 
  
  ***Powerless and unheard 
  
  I've been on the other side of this too. I've gone back and re-read some 
  of my early postings on Apple, they're all still there, and I see the 
  same thing. My face blushes, I missed something back then. 
  
  If Apple didn't recognize the role of a developer community, then no 
  such community exists. When it's relative to a brand name or a company 
  or a product, it must have recognition. I was committed to the 
  existence of the Mac developer community, but it only existed in the 
  minds of a few people. 
  
  In Austin, TX, at the closing dinner of an independent Macintosh web 
  developer conference in the summer of 1996, I asked a question. "Of 
  all the people in this room, who is going to make $5 million in the next 
  three years?" Eyes darted, not landing on any individual. That 
  wouldn't have happened in the PC software market, or in the early Mac 
  market. People believed that a bet could pay off. 
  
  The obvious response was to get out. No amount of pain is worth the hard 
  work of being a developer without any potential payoff. If there's no 
  way to win, why are we working so hard? 
  
  That's the realistic view, but in the mind-game world, 
  powerlessness begets rage. People who realize they have no say in a 
  future they're committed to, who struggle to stay there, even after 
  the world has changed. Eventually you move on, go thru the stages of 
  grief, starting with rage and ending with hope. 
  
  <http://ub-counseling.buffalo.edu/Grief/grief.html> 
  
  If you move, you have power. If you stay, you remain powerless. I 
  really believe that powerless people must want it that way. The 
  instant they want to be relieved of powerlessness, they just have to 
  exercise their power and it's gone. Poof! It's just like 
  mathematics. 
  
  It's also like chess. Try this strategy. Move a pawn back and forth 
  endlessly. Your king will be dead in a few moves, if you're lucky. If 
  you're unlucky, you're playing with someone else whose strategy is 
  powerless pawn-movement. You're in for a long game until you give up. 
  
  ***No platform vendor 
  
  The Internet is a more powerful seduction than the Macintosh, it has 
  promise that the Mac never had, after all it's the platform without a 
  platform vendor, so there's no one to blame for it getting stuck. 
  Never mind, the collective net still blames Microsoft. It won't 
  work, because Microsoft isn't responsible, as Apple wasn't. They 
  never promised to take care of you, and honestly, realistically, you 
  won't die if they don't. Yet the arguments have the seriousness of a 
  life and death struggle. People use war analogies. It feeds their 
  powerlessness, they act as a soldier in battle raging to stay alive. 
  
  No individual person is to blame for the failure of inspiration on the 
  net, the blame lies with human nature. If we can evolve we can be 
  powerful. If we have no discipline, if anything goes, we go back to the 
  dysfunction of the houses we were raised in. It's like being in a bad 
  marriage with millions of people. It goes bad in an instant. One day 
  cool things are happening. Then someone feels powerless and acts on 
  it and the cool things stop. 
  
  ***It hurts so good 
  
  Endless paraniod flamefests can be fascinating. It's a good vehicle 
  for looking at your own pain. I watch other web writers deal with it. 
  Here's my advice. You're growing if you go deeply into the pain that 
  false accusations raise. Sure there's a person on the other side of 
  the bits who hates you, lies about you, just like someone once did. But 
  remember that they're just ones and zeroes, and that the person 
  writing them doesn't know you. He's talking to someone else, the 
  message has been addressed incorrectly. 
  
  It works the other way too. Larry Tesler, the former CTO at Apple, said 
  something brilliant to a friend of mine who sent him a flame letter. 
  "Someone is obviously using your email account without your 
  permission." We laughed. What an elegant response. 
  
  ***Geocities 
  
  Geocities offers free web hosting. Their users pay nothing. The 
  company wants to put a watermark graphic on every page it serves. 
  Users erupt in violent email, a contradiction in terms. A handful of 
  supposedly powerless people have discovered that if they cry 
  venomously enough via email, they'll get attention. 
  
  Does Geocities have the power to put the watermarks on pages they 
  host? Of course they do! What a silly question. Do the people using 
  their service have a choice? Yes, they could go with Tripod or The 
  Globe, or some other free page hosting service. Not only is it 
  possible to switch, it's easy. 
  
  ***Talking to your power 
  
  In a series last month, I looked at Netscape's keyword server feature 
  in version 4.5. My complaints came from a powerful place because I 
  have a choice since Netscape has competition. It was actually a 
  second derivative concern, I'm concerned about *becoming* 
  powerless. 
  
  I want Netscape to survive because if they don't, the web developer 
  community, a potentially fictitious group, will cease to exist. If 
  Microsoft is the only game in the browser business, they will define 
  what it means to be a web developer. Then I predict a replay of the 
  Austin scenario. 
  
  I'm not writing this to raise your fear. I'm talking to your power. 
  What can you do to raise the emotional age of the Internet? If you feel 
  as I do, that the lowest common denominator rules, what can we do to 
  balance that? I'm working on these issues right now. Comments are 
  welcome. 
  
  Dave Winer 


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