A long way, and the wrong way
The first Boidem column appeared on the web a bit less than half a year after John Perry Barlow's, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. We're essentially the same age. Does anything remain of Barlow's fighting words? Ten years ago, in yet another sort-of birthday related column, I raised my doubts. And what about The Cluetrain Manifesto and "markets are conversations"? The Boidem could be considered that text's older brother. Does anything remain of "markets are conversations"? In that same column I quoted David Weinberger who reflected on that text and wrote:
First, the moderately obnoxious tone of the book was appropriate in 1999, but now it's sometimes odd. It reads as if being on the Web were an act of rebellion. Ten years later, the Web is the mainstream.
With all that's gone wrong, I suppose it's only fair to note that some dire predictions didn't materialize, even if at least one of these perhaps should have. And let's not forget another - not really a prediction, but sadly a promise not kept. We've come a very long way since Don't Be Evil was Google's motto. Eight years ago I wrote a bit about that as well, noting that:
It certainly won't come as a surprise that today's humungous platforms have moved well beyond the "Don't be Evil" phase, and that their central function is increasing profit.
But that was eight years ago when it's a passable guess that there were people using the internet who remembered that this had been Google's motto and were aware that in that year Google removed it, or sent to a well-hidden back seat.
I ended that birthday-related column with what I guess is a sort-of complaint that the:
Boidem looks out upon the grown-up internet, and wishes that it would have stayed young.
But this review of some of the more prominent ways in which the internet seems to have taken a wrong turn raises an uncomfortable question concerning this final column. If I complained about all this back then, why does this column focus on these issues as though they're things that have happened in the eight years since the last/previous edition of The Boidem. Maybe this page is a totally unnecessary part of this concluding column.
Go to: So the writing was on the wall?, or
Go to: Sometimes the tie-in is obvious, or
Go to: It was thirty years ago today