Changing Net

There is an unflattering movie out now called "the Social Network' about the founder of Facebook and about the application. I have not seen it and have no interest, but it represents an assault on some of the more popular applications and engines on the Internet. I find that fascinating because until now the internet has been views as an open territory where only the marketplace (success or failure of a site) acted as censor or critic.

Just recently Facebook has been under assault for some of its applications and other big applications and engines like Google and Yahoo have been blasted by everyone from the Chinese government to individual consumers who find fault with some aspect of them. censorship issues, hostility from one user to another, lack of privacy, etc.

Those popular applications have their rules and or the rules imposed on them by government. The domain belongs to them, but few users want to play a strictly by their rules and can ruin the application for all.. Look at the recent furor about the Craigslist "adult section", which in some locals became nothing more than an outlet for prostitution. After a barrage of complaints Craigslist shut the section down, only to see the sex appear in other venues on the list., showing how the users now are in control of that and other sites.

It seems those applications have become dens of chaos, a survival of the most fit has arisen to replace the neat model the applications once were. All of this may be like the bird in the coal mine. It may be the face of what is coming for the internet.....less freedom for the user, less freedom for the site itself and the end of dominance by some of the Goliath's like Google and Facebook. As users and makers get fed up with increasing interference a new phase of the internet that changes user behavior from "one of the pack" to a more individualistic orientation may emerge.