Thursday, February 28, 2008

Adam Smith on the Internet

McPherson presents the rather terrifying idea that corporate content providers uncomfortable with the vast freedom of the internet attempted to flex their controlling muscles by co-opting and limiting a user’s experience on the internet, citing the examples of MSNBC and AOL. I recall when my grandma subscribed to MSN as her ISP and email provider, but the web browser they had her install wasn’t even internet explorer. There was no address bar to be found. They seemed so reluctant to allow her to experience what it was she was actually paying for. Everyone used to have AOL, and now it’s (as far as I can tell) horribly outdated and unfashionable, even, to have AOL: a controlling limiting gateway to the internet. Almost like the invisible hand of the free market, these ridiculous aspirations of the power hungry higher ups are stifled by a collective notion and pressure. While my grandma may not have understood her disadvantage, plenty of knowledgeable people fought on her behalf with complaints to MSN and AOL, and these companies are forced to progress and allow users to achieve what they know is possible and allowed by the internet.

I remember when I used to make terrible websites with stolen clipart and animated gifs demonstrating my vast portfolio of Pokemon cards and was thrilled to learn how to code frames in html. My dad, one of the few people who cared to visit my site, often complained of the limitations and frustrating aspects of frames: by opening new html pages within an internal frame, thereby pulling the rug out from beneath the mobility of links and clicking, one could not bookmark what one saw. This was a tactic I remember MSN employing: you could access the internet, but often it was trapped in their frame, ugly sidebars prevailing all over the place. This often led to infinite loops, too: If, for example, the MSN page allowed you to navigate to Google within a frame, and once you were done searching you navigated back to your homepage, msn.com, that would open within the frame and existing nav bars, including a new, duplicate set of frames and nav bars. Just like when a model poses on a magazine cover with a copy of that exact magazine in her hands, creating image within image, etc. (Almost like a mirror-effect in a funhouse. What might this be saying about Lacan’s mirror stage!?) Anyway, due to some equalizing, just, freemarket factor of the internet (maybe protocol?) frames have been lambasted to death and have become a severe no-no for any self-respecting web designer.

Anyway, maybe the internet is better at taking care of itself than people give it credit for? In terms of McPherson’s observation about transformation but no change, it seems to me that on a finite, individual level that can be problematic, but on the infinite scale of the internet this cannot be a problem. In a way, the internet defies the first law of Thermodynamics. Web sites can be Created AND Destroyed.

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