Keon J. Group B: Is the Internet a big Disappointment?

           In Chapters 4 and 5 of McChesney’s Digital Disconnect, he discusses the rise of capitalism in the internet in the late 1900’s. As McChesney and a number of other authors point out, when the internet became available to the public it was supposed to revolutionize the way that people think about well... everything. It was supposed to crush corporations, make information available to everyone, destroy corruption, increase happiness and it was supposed to be the epitome of equality as a utopia separate from reality.

Internet capitalism according to McChesney, began when corporations began to patrol the internet, its users who used their services for a small monthly fee. Users were able to browse the web freely in their “walled garden” areas of course (103). This alone was a huge shift from the egalitarian idea that existed before the rise of capitalism. When businesses stuck their big greedy feet into the endless stream known as the internet in 1990, ideas like equal access for all, and sharing for the common good became obsolete. McChesney believes that equality was destroyed when the patent explosion occurred. Of course, with the large number of people in the market, some people naturally wanted to turn a profit instead of allowing others to access their information for free. According to Berners-Lee, patents became a “very serious problem” and they sparked the creation of monopolies. Instead of becoming a utopia, it was becoming a “technological dream or legal nightmare” (104).

Businesses, of course, knew that what they were doing was going against the original vision of the internet but they “were not about to disappear quietly for the good of humanity” (105). They were more focused on making a profit. The internet was supposed to be like this but it ended up like this The first problem and most important problem that I have with the idea that the internet was to become a community of “sharing for the common good” is that not everyone is going to be willing to share. In order for something like communal sharing to work, the majority must agree on a decision and stick with it. Once one person begins to gain footing over others, the idea of equality is completely thrown off.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act led to deregulation which was actually a goal of the internet but it ended up backfiring because with all the changes happening to internet (controlled subscription garden utopias) there needed to be gov’t regulation to help out the little man. Cooperation between businesses led to the creation of conglomerates. Influential businesses putting forth their ideas of internet services for profit and backing each other up “legitimizes the commercialization of the internet” (109). When plenty of big corporations come together and make it seem like what they’re doing is “right” or natural, few can oppose them.

            There was always a lot of talk in the past about what the internet was supposed to do for people but not much about how people could use the internet to make these things happen. In the first section, McChesney says that, “The Internet was expected to provide more competitive, markets, accountable businesses, open governments, an end to corruption, etc…It has been a disappointment” (McChesney 97). How can one be disappointed in something that is unable to act on its own? The internet has no agency. Corporations and monopolies ultimately controlled the path that the internet took in the late 1990’s. Would it have been possible for an egalitarian community to be created using the internet as a medium if things had not happened the way they did? or is internet equality for unattainable simply because a select few (companies/people) will always “rise to the top and dominate web?”