@evolutionInternet2010
Title: [@evolutionInternet2010] date: 2023-04-06 type: reference project: Memex3
tags:: Memex3, internet, ARPANET, communication, control, agency, decentralization, information
Reference¶
“11.2 The Evolution of the Internet – Understanding Media and Culture.” Accessed April 6, 2023. https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/11-2-the-evolution-of-the-internet/.
Summary & Key Take Aways¶
This article explores the evolution of the internet and the creation of a unique media ecosystem of interconnected culture. It narrates the departure from a centralized network of communication to a decentralized system. This system was born in the fear of imminent nuclear war and as such was meant to be "indestructible." The new distributed network would offer multiple potential paths for the message in the event that a node would go offline. The article then introduces the "@" symbol for electronic mail, credited to Ray Tomlinson. The newfound speed of these e-mails fundamentally changed human practices of communication. The article also explores the early presence of hypertext which allowed documents to link to other links. With this, the populartity of web browsers increased and became more accessible. The article shows how profitability was a reccuring problem such as the "dot com boom" that was followed alter by the "dot com crash" and how businesses were starting and trying to capitalize the network. As the internet was meant to be free, there was a democratization of publishing, which means that anyone could publish ideas on the web. This sparked the early days of social media, giving the ability for people to catch up with friends not seen in years without actually interacting with them (through calls or meeting). They could just read their friends' page on twitter or facebook and always know what they were up to. This democratization of publishing was taken further by GeoCities, a company who would give the ability to people to create web pages for communities for free. However, the business was built on a "Freemium" model which means that free users had a reduced service compared to paid-premium users who had all the features at the cost of money.
How does it relate to class?¶
Throughout part 3 of the course, we have been looking at the evolution of the internet since the 70s, understanding how the results of nuclear fear sparked a revolution in the ways we communicated. This article clearly brings us through the evolution of the internet, but it also emphasizes on key terms and ideas that made the web special and problematic. The internet started as democratization of communication, bringing accessible ways of communicating to others for free. Built on the indestructible structure born from the cold war, the internet was meant to be free and allowed people to post on the web. However, the article quickly notes how capitalism influenced the culture of internet with the introduction of freemium models. I believe the introduction of these Freemium models played a part in the enshittification of everything which we saw in April. It goes to show how technology is always in a dialogue with power dynamics (Politics_of_power).