2003-09-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

i would like to write about how my
experience validates lawrence lessig's
ideas about the internet as a commons
of innovation.

when i came on the net a long time ago it
was very loose and free. i posted whatever
i wanted to post however i wanted whenever i
wanted. people either liked it, hated it, or
didn't care. all of that is fine.

the freedom i felt made it possible for me
to play with ideas in a way that i could
not play with ideas in the context of my
job. in my job at that point, to keep faith
with the ettiquette and protocols, i could
not pick up my pen or open my mouth with
out a footnote. this inhibited me from
writing and thinking.

on the net, at that time, there were no
rules, no ability to register, everything
was text and there was no ability to thoughtfully
edit a post the way you can at a place like the WELL or
salon. the stuff i wrote was
1-shot, improvised, no look back. it was
a lot like jazz. there were no edwardian ladies
and gentlemen writing highly edited
freshman philosophical nonsense.

there was no strategy.

there were no profits to be made.

there were no consultants.

lessig suggests that when
berners-lee laid the graphic interface
on top of the net, it opened a pandora's box.
it accomplished exactly what it intended
to accomplish and that is that it brought
everybody to the web. he is right.

the web's graphical interface
brought or caused large corporate
entities to re-think the net, and it caused
them to begin strategizing about the net.

so people began to think about how to regularize
the net. they began to think about how to
profit from it. they began to think about how to control
it. they began to try to learn about who was
using the net, how they were using it, and why
they were using it. the 'predict and control'
pattern of thinking and response of the
dying renaissance/enlightenment cultural
pattern began to surface
on the net. net-strategy began. IT-strategy
relative to internet use began. the 'let's see
if we can do this for big bucks online' dream began. (there
used to be a joke about that running around:
it used go something like "oh look, a guy
came into my office today and he has an idea
for a killer app: he wants to make a thing like
a clock that you can use to tell time online...")

because of that work, a thing that used to empower people because
it had no rules, only a tradition of improvisation
and anonymity, quickly became a thing primarily
about buying stuff and hijacking, for profit,
information and ideas that once were simply shared.
it became a thing about exclusion and surveillence.

writing on the net, which at one time was
a kind of improvised "cutting contest" game
became something that posers carefully
cut and edited so that they could create
an image of being a capital w writer. writing
on the net became something that hustlers
became aware of and they came and signed
up and posed as Writers. they hustled
and harvested and consulted from the work
of others that originally was meant for
free sharing, and they wrote their books and collected their
royalties (may they all end in remainder bins)

the hustlers looked upon the sharers who were
playing as idiots waiting to be harvested.

we are not idiots, and we are not waiting.

control, registration, strategy,
regularization. all these things
are against the intent of the Founders.

mr. lessig