Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The ongoing commercialization of the web

I love this short essay by Doc Searls illustrating how the Web is moving in exactly the wrong direction.


Google Maps tells us little about the location, but plenty about the commercial establishments there.

...

You know those hotel maps they give away, that only show hotels? It’s like that, only worse. The hotel maps at least give you some street names.


Doc makes two great points:

  • We're not always buying something

  • Advertising should not be the only business model



As our libraries disappear, as our newspapers and magazines vanish, and as the state of the art in technology seems to spend more and more of its effort on incremental improvements in advertising technique, kudos to Doc Searls, Brewster Kahle, and others like them for continuing to remind us that we are more than merely consumers.

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