And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type of hi
How the Internet was Stolen
I look at the history of the internet, from ARPANET & NSFNET, through privatization, to Tim-Berners Lee, Yahoo, Netscape, Google, eBay, and Facebook, examining Microsoft's antitrust court case and their battle against Open Source and Free Software, Bill Gate's Open Letter to Hobbyists and the leaked Halloween Documents. Then we take a look at the emergence of Surveillance Capitalism, and how platforms like AirBnb & Uber coopt the idea of the community and lobby politicians. Finally, we take a look at some alternatives. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction to the History of the Internet 04:06 – Building the Net 20:37 – The Browser Wars (Microsoft vs the United States) 44:35 – The Californian Ideology (eBay, Yahoo, Google and the Libertarian Mind) 01:07:26 – The Raiding of Privacy (Surveillance Capitalism) 01:18:05 – Facebook 01:26:07 – The Theft of the Community (Airbnb & Uber) 01:40:31 – No Place (Utopian Dreams) 01:49:38 – Open Source vs Microsoft 01:59:24 – Conclusion: Politics, Policy, and Alternatives
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