Re: Tweet This: I Don't Care

[Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>]

You want "curmudgeon"?  I'll give ya curmudgeon...

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:27:43PM -0400, B.K. DeLong wrote:
> This post has been full of nothing but sad curmudgeons grumbling about
> "new-fangled technology" and "how good the old stuff works so why
> change?" 

And yet the "sad old curmudgeons" have been the only ones to display
an acceptable grasp of rudimentary netiquette: not full-quoting, not
top-posting, not sending superfluous copies of messages to people
who are known to be subscribed to the list.  It would appear they still
have some things to teach the newbies who haven't yet learned how to
use email properly and politely. 1/2 ;-), 1/2 not

You might want to remember that the "sad old curmudgeons" built the
network you're currently using.  And that perhaps they're not quite as
reactionary as you seem to think, but rather more cynical about the
latest transient and unimportant fad.  After all: they've seen many.

Many of the newbies (in my view: "anyone who did not have an address
ending in .ARPA") seem very intent on constantly creating and using new
communication methods while failing to master any of the ones they
already have.  And thus we see ever-more-elaborate, ever-more-heavyweight
mechanisms put in play, many of which are actually far worse in terms
of facilitating communication than those they would replace, and most of
which carry serious privacy, security and abuse risks that have not
been adequately researched or analyzed prior to production deployment.

None of these have yet approached the utility, efficiency, scalability,
resilience, and reach that Usenet had decades ago.  It's very instructive
to consider why that's the case.  Hint: consider motivation, in particular,
"profit".  And keep firmly mind that the users of these sites/services
are NOT the customer.  They, and their personal data and activities and
attention, are the product which is being sold to the actual customers.
(I'm continually amazed at how many people blithely accept the largesse
of these sites without ever stopping to consider how the bills are paid,
and what that means for them.)

More broadly: I'm not opposed to innovation: I've been doing it here
for almost 30 years.  I'm opposed to mistaking flavor-of-the-month for
actual innovation.  Didn't the dot-com era teach everyone that while
the former is easy, the latter is very hard?  And rare?  It's entirely
possible that Twitter is the Flooz of the moment.  Or not.

Wait and watch.  And let's review a decade from now.

But short of "I'm on fire", there's really very little that I have to
say which is so vital, so necessary, so immediate, that it can't bear
with some thought and editing before being inflicted on the rest of the
world.  I think the same is true of others, particularly true of those
who don't understand what I just said.

---Rsk
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