RE: Opinion ["the culture of the net"]

[tobeth@lava.net (Beech Family)]

  DHamilton@baydweller.com wrote
  
  >>MS did not trample on 'net technology as much as they trampled on the
  >>culture. Which is not illegal, but it certainly explains the
  >>well-deserved and highly emotional Microsoft-bashing one sees out
  >>there.
  >
  >Interesting comment.  I can remember just 10 years ago (pre-WWW) when
  [snip] The only way
  >individuals could access the net was to have an academic account at
  >pointyhead.edu, or to work for the military, a defense-related firm, or
  >a networking firm.   The "culture", as you have correctly called it, was
  >radically different from today.
  >
  [snip]
  >So who changed the culture?  Why is everyone now on the net?  How come a
  >six-year old can now visit the library of congress or send a letter to
  >the president?  How come some company can sell rubber sunglasses over
  >the internet?
  >
  >You are right, the culture on the 'net has changed radically, and, from
  >the culture of acadamic purity of 10 years ago, it certainly has been
  >"trampled".  We now have XXX-rated web-sites, porno-gifs and jpegs
  >zipping around the world.  And worst of all, we have spam.
  >
  >Microsoft did not trample the culture of the internet.  They arrived
  >late to this party.  If you want to blame anyone for the change in
  >culture of the internet, I would suggest looking at the wonder-boy who
  >let loose the browser on the world - Marc Andreessen - and his cohorts.
  
  
  Okay - Here's the difference between the two "changes in the culture"
  mentioned in these two posts..
  
  1)we saw the culture becoming MORE ACCESSIBLE ..with all that implies
  [gawd, ain't free speech disgusting}
  
  2)What Peter is talking about is the net becoming LESS ACCESSIBLE...
  
  Sorry to be so brutal..but this kind of mind twisting bugs me.As for
  ActiveX..again - that's something I know little about.
  
  Heather
  tobeth@lava.net
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >> -----Original Messages [in reverse order]-----
  
  >Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 18:37:55 -0500 (EST)
  >Reply-To: DHamilton@baydweller.com
  >Originator: am-info@essential.org
  >Sender: am-info@essential.org
  >Precedence: bulk
  >From: Dave Hamilton <DHamilton@baydweller.com>
  >To: Multiple recipients of list <am-info@essential.org>
  >Subject: RE: Opinion
  >
  >>MS did not trample on 'net technology as much as they trampled on the
  >>culture. Which is not illegal, but it certainly explains the
  >>well-deserved and highly emotional Microsoft-bashing one sees out
  >>there.
  >
  >Interesting comment.  I can remember just 10 years ago (pre-WWW) when
  >commercial activity on the internet was heavily frowned uppon.  It was
  >nearly impossible for a commercial entity to get a presence on the web.
  >You had to submit forms that demonstrated an academic need, or similar
  >non-commercial reason for being on the internet.  The only way
  >individuals could access the net was to have an academic account at
  >pointyhead.edu, or to work for the military, a defense-related firm, or
  >a networking firm.   The "culture", as you have correctly called it, was
  >radically different from today.
  >
  >So who changed the culture?  It was all the news years ago that
  >Microsoft had missed the boat on the Internet wave and had to put on a
  >massive push in order to catch up with companies that were already
  >"there".
  >
  >So who changed the culture?  Commercial companies like Compuserve,
  >Lexis/Nexis, and eventually America Online and Prodigy were making money
  >and thriving by providing "commercial" access to a network and its
  >content, not the Internet, but still a network.
  >
  >So who changed the culture?  The internet was accessed using obscure
  >command-line interfaces, using command-line utilities to encode and
  >decode the content.  "Normal" people couldn't use the net, nor did they
  >want to.
  >
  >So who changed the culture?  Why is everyone now on the net?  How come a
  >six-year old can now visit the library of congress or send a letter to
  >the president?  How come some company can sell rubber sunglasses over
  >the internet?
  >
  >You are right, the culture on the 'net has changed radically, and, from
  >the culture of acadamic purity of 10 years ago, it certainly has been
  >"trampled".  We now have XXX-rated web-sites, porno-gifs and jpegs
  >zipping around the world.  And worst of all, we have spam.
  >
  >Microsoft did not trample the culture of the internet.  They arrived
  >late to this party.  If you want to blame anyone for the change in
  >culture of the internet, I would suggest looking at the wonder-boy who
  >let loose the browser on the world - Marc Andreessen - and his cohorts.
  >
  >Don't missunderstand me.  I'm not complaining about the change in
  >culture of the internet.  Everything changes.  The good 'ol days always
  >look good in hindsight.  But blaming Microsoft for that change is really
  >giving them too much credit.  And too much blame.
  >
  >And, by the way, ActiveX is already on the Mac and on UNIX.  All they
  >want to do is rule the world.  Scarry, isn't it?  :-)
  >
  >Dave Hamilton
  >dhamilton@baydweller.com
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >> -----Original Message-----
  >> From: Pieter Nagel [SMTP:pieter.nagel@epiuse.co.za]
  >> Sent: Friday, November 14, 1997 4:54 PM
  >> To:   Multiple recipients of list
  >> Subject:      Re: Opinion
  >>
  >> On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Christopher Pall wrote:
  >>
  >> > MS would like users to believe that it
  >> > must use IE to browse the web.
  >>
  >> Correction: MS would like it to be *true* that you must use IE to
  >> browse the web.
  >>
  >> That is a radical new aproach to the Internet that we never saw
  >> before Microsoft, afaik. Before, we had RFC's carefully expounding
  >> the difference between a protocol and implementation. Compatibility.
  >> Carefully defining "network byte-order" so any machine can read data
  >> off a network stream. But how the heck is a Macintosh supposed to
  >> implement ActiveX short of emulating a 80x86 CPU and significant
  >> portions of the Win API?
  >>
  >> There's nothing wring with writing platform-specific protocols, and
  >> doing so to reap market share in the ertswhile cross-platform
  >> Internet may also not be a legal transgression. But a moral one?
  >>
  >> We had a community of people living by a dream: communication between
  >> anybody. My love for the Internet got started when I founded a
  >> newsgroup for the support of people with a certain neurological
  >> condition; and I always had the vision of millions of people, "out
  >> there", no matter what computer they have, being able to share
  >> experiences and discovering "thank god, I'm not weird."
  >>
  >> In a very real sense, the Internet changed my life; and
  >> interoperability made it possible.  Most of my usenet friends were
  >> non-computer people without money for expensive systems. If NNTP were
  >> Exchange they would never have been part.
  >>
  >> That vision is now threatened. I am faced with the very real
  >> possibility that in a year or two's time, if I want to host an easily
  >> accesible FAQ on a web site somewhere, that I must shell out
  >> thousands for MS software and extra hardware.
  >>
  >> MS did not trample on 'net technology as much as they trampled on the
  >> culture. Which is not illegal, but it certainly explains the
  >> well-deserved and highly emotional Microsoft-bashing one sees out
  >> there.
  >>
  >>      ,_
  >>      /_)              /| /
  >>     /   i e t e r    / |/ a g e l