...
Show More
Let me just start by saying that this book is somewhat dated. This book was published before smartphones really became a thing (the original iPhone is from 2007; this book is from 2002) and before FaceBook (founded in 2004). Just so we're clear on just how far back we're looking.
It may be nearly 20 years old but many of the warnings (about surveillance and lack of privacy) have been borne out in the years since.
For those of us who deal with open source software, we're familiar with terms like "free riders" (people who don't contribute to a community / project but are only too happy to benefit from it) and "the tragedy of the commons" (when there's a largely-unregulated commons from which anyone can profit, and handful will exploit it to the detriment of the majority). This book mentions those, in-depth. It also gets into exactly how the "tragedy" was originally avoided. And how it can be avoided today.
Yes, there's a lot of talk about flip phones (those were the new hotness at the time) and how companies like Japan's DoCoMo were enabling the growth of a market (and a movement) and others were trying to wall it off. It was made plainly obvious that organic markets are much more likely to actually go somewhere, do something, than walled gardens.
One of the points made is that a lot of the people using all kinds of services on flip phones were actually using Internet services, but they didn't perceive it as Internet services. In that era, the Internet was this thing where you had to sit down at a PC, dial in over a modem, do all these "formal" steps to get connected and do anything. Using such services on a cellphone was anything but formal.
As someone who worked tech support at a dial-up ISP, there's a tremendous ring of truth to that. When I got to work in the afternoon, my office machines were all Internet-connected without needing to go through the ritual of dialing-in. Using Internet services became, for me, far less formal. And that feels the same as using my smartphone (and other, always-connected machines at home) today.
As texting and other ultra-portable text-based comms evolved, the very notion / concept of being "present" for something changed. You could hang with your friends without being in their proximate vicinity. You could "take part" in some social event without being there, physically. I'm seeing this, to a tremendous degree today. I may be sitting at home, with a laptop, but I'm taking part in what's going on at my office. Or I may be doing so with a smartphone or tablet.
Another point that's made in the book is that some systems are organized from the top (usually with some rigid implementation and some vision as to how they will be used) and some are organized from the bottom (a bunch of people "got together" and thought "ya know, it would be really cool / useful if we could ..."). The top-down approaches mentioned in the book ... pretty sure they've all died off. Many of the bottom-up approaches are still going strong.
While the book, and a lot of the narrative, may be somewhat dated, there are some timeless lessons in this book for those who are willing to wade through it.
It may be nearly 20 years old but many of the warnings (about surveillance and lack of privacy) have been borne out in the years since.
For those of us who deal with open source software, we're familiar with terms like "free riders" (people who don't contribute to a community / project but are only too happy to benefit from it) and "the tragedy of the commons" (when there's a largely-unregulated commons from which anyone can profit, and handful will exploit it to the detriment of the majority). This book mentions those, in-depth. It also gets into exactly how the "tragedy" was originally avoided. And how it can be avoided today.
Yes, there's a lot of talk about flip phones (those were the new hotness at the time) and how companies like Japan's DoCoMo were enabling the growth of a market (and a movement) and others were trying to wall it off. It was made plainly obvious that organic markets are much more likely to actually go somewhere, do something, than walled gardens.
One of the points made is that a lot of the people using all kinds of services on flip phones were actually using Internet services, but they didn't perceive it as Internet services. In that era, the Internet was this thing where you had to sit down at a PC, dial in over a modem, do all these "formal" steps to get connected and do anything. Using such services on a cellphone was anything but formal.
As someone who worked tech support at a dial-up ISP, there's a tremendous ring of truth to that. When I got to work in the afternoon, my office machines were all Internet-connected without needing to go through the ritual of dialing-in. Using Internet services became, for me, far less formal. And that feels the same as using my smartphone (and other, always-connected machines at home) today.
As texting and other ultra-portable text-based comms evolved, the very notion / concept of being "present" for something changed. You could hang with your friends without being in their proximate vicinity. You could "take part" in some social event without being there, physically. I'm seeing this, to a tremendous degree today. I may be sitting at home, with a laptop, but I'm taking part in what's going on at my office. Or I may be doing so with a smartphone or tablet.
Another point that's made in the book is that some systems are organized from the top (usually with some rigid implementation and some vision as to how they will be used) and some are organized from the bottom (a bunch of people "got together" and thought "ya know, it would be really cool / useful if we could ..."). The top-down approaches mentioned in the book ... pretty sure they've all died off. Many of the bottom-up approaches are still going strong.
While the book, and a lot of the narrative, may be somewhat dated, there are some timeless lessons in this book for those who are willing to wade through it.
