Re: Spin isn't an argument

[Pieter Nagel <pieter.nagel@epiuse.co.za>]

  On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, cswiger wrote:
  
  > I just don't think there's a really big threat or potential threat
  > to free speech to justify antitrust action. I or you or anyone
  > can publish a web site critising MS. You can use NT to publish
  > articles unfavorable to MS and Gates can't stop you.
  
  Unless, if the Web were as ubiquitous as newspapers and telephones,
  and only MS browsers existed and could only read content served by
  MS servers, you would not be able to post articles unfavorable to MS
  and Gates *without* using NT.
  
  That amount of technological control over communications is to be
  feared. Remember, AT&T could not censor telephone conversations. But
  the Internet is automated. Search Engines could be made unable to
  index sites which were not tagged by an MS-approved label.
  
  That kind of Big Brother power is still decades ahead of MS. But I am
  extrapolating from their present growth, the technologies they gain
  monopoly, and the potential threat that holds.
  
  > The people who pay for content,
  > the advertisers, usually want to reach a broad audience or a
  > specific type of audience, and to advertise a product in a
  > medium viewable only to users of MS products seems counter
  > productive.
  
  Not if everybody used MS products.
  
  > What real examples are there of exclusionary media?
  
  Not yet; but computing power makes it possible to make the medium
  aware of the content; entirely new exclusionary scenarios are
  possible if you use your imaginition. A few decades ago it took
  imaginition to realise there was a need for more than 5 computers
  worlwide.
  
       ,_
       /_)              /| /
      /   i e t e r    / |/ a g e l