The emergence of Web 2.0 has often attracted a gluttony of negative commentary by people who do not entirely understand what Web 2.0 is and, subsequently, what it entails. Now, there is some truth to the relationship between Web 2.0 and the quantum increases in bandwidth that are primarily being created through the investments of ISP’s. However, the necessary increase in the distribution of bandwidth is only requisite for Web 2.0 and is not one of its defining characteristics.
Furthermore, as long as Net Neutrality is maintained, we need not concern ourselves over the egalitarian distribution of bandwidth, because there will be provisions requiring providers to make bandwidth available according to pricing schemes that are affordable to a broad spectrum of American consumers. This is not to say that more does not need to be done to improve accessibility of high-speed Internet connections for all segments of the population. However, this does exclude arguments against Web 2.0 that rely upon futuristic hypotheses prognosticating the establishment of a stratified consumer market consisting of the haves and the have not’s.
Web 2.0 is a paradigmatic shift in the way software development is conceived and practiced. It involves a flattening of the traditional hierarchical structures comprised of the vendors who have the resources to dominate the market and smaller startups that hope to grow into profitable outfits. Additionally, the traditional boundaries between manufacturers and consumers is blurred, since all parties involved in this new configuration of development and end-use possess the ability to assume different capacities in the relationships between and among identities within the market. Although, this pains me a great deal to acknowledge this, but there is a semblance of truth to the conditions predicted in the Army of Davids. Furthermore, new spaces of social knowledge production will be generated through the proliferation of Web-based servers that will facilitate collaborative, inclusionary knowledge-production.
To sum it all up under a description that can be considered the central crux of Web 2.0, Web-based applications that are primarily open-sourced, so to attract other developers to further enhance the functionality of the components belonging to the service and its Web-based applications, will become the norm for future software development. This optimistic account of the social conditions to follow the unclosing of the Web 2.0 revolution should not be interpreted as an indication that there is no more fight to be waged against the powerful and the privileged. Nevertheless, this does call for an approach to the advocacy for Electronic Democracy that embraces technological possibilities rather than simply implanting ourselves in the current landscape of the status quo, because we are too shortsighted to think of how things might be better, as opposed to investing all of our efforts in an attempt to ensure the continuation of the limited positive aspects, associated with what limited aspects belonging to the Internet that we currently enjoy.
Russell Cole
Tags: bandwidth, corporations, democracy, direct democracy, economics, government, market, media, net neutrailty, Net Neutrality, Russell Coles Blog, web 2.0
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, government, Russell Cole's Blog, Web 2.0, Net Neutrality, Corporations, Direct Democracy, Media
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