Jarond Lanier, the guy who coined the term "virtual reality" and an all-around internet pioneer, has written a new book that finds a few problems with the current state of the internets.
The skinny? The internet has created a destructive new social contract.
- "The basic idea of this contract," he writes, "is that authors, journalists, musicians and artists are encouraged to treat the fruits of their intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising."
He calls Google and YouTube the "lords of the clouds" and the proletariat masses the "digital peasants".
Nice pleasant way to start your day, no?
Labels: internet