The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the
Web. Deterioration only
began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web
2.0” designs. These designs
valued the information content of the web over individuals.
It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into
dehumanized data. There are
so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize
them. Here’s just one
problem: It screws the
middle class. Only the
aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual
producers of content get poor.
This is why newspapers are dying.
It might sound like it is only a problem for creative people,
like musicians or writers, but eventually it will be a problem for
everyone. When robots can
repair roads someday, will people have jobs programming those robots, or
will the human programmers be so aggregated that they essentially work
for free, like today’s recording musicians?
Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle class and undo centuries
of social progress.