I feel a bit more dour about the web. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but
hasn't this whole dotcom bubble apocryphal goldrush story worked out well for
the 'establishment'. Seems to dovetail oh-so-nicely with the desires and
agendas of more entrenched powers and coincides with what I see as
retroactive politics (Let's start a cold war with China! Yeah, we know how to
do that! Let's use high-tech to have a missile shield and throw really
expensive contracts at our cronies and discomfit our allies! Yeah, we know
how to do that!) And... let's let these wide-eyed web types build and
innovate, thinking it's theirs, and then grab their programs, technologies,
and ideas for a song in the 'crash' and adapt them to our worldview and
marketing plan! Yeah, we've always done that!

Your sleepless nights and revolutionary excitements ultimately fueled the
'old economy' while providing it with ideas and web-structures it now can use
(after buying you out at your fire sale) to deliver more Britney Spears
quizzes and (download trailer now!) promo trailers.

Alternative content is becoming harder to find and access for novice web
users. The rich, complex soupy sea of inchoate potential that was the web is
being simultaneously tamed and polluted. Save the wetlands! Preserve the
ghost sites!

But there's oil in them thar hills. We need to drill and deliver.
Collateral damage acceptable. The arc of 'civilization' and 'progress' has
inscribed itself over the web post-haste, leaving its contributers and
creators grasping to preserve some sort of ecosystem balance against the very
forces that have shaped the geopolitical and ecological realities of this
planet. (example: threatened prosecution for those offering non-sanctioned
domains).

On a less lofty note, don't know if anyone reads 'cybering' the ezine I
started about web culture, but it's down as I move it to a friendly host (had
some 'adult content' problems, just by virtue of talking about adult content
on the web). But Michal, of linkwatcher, has kindly stepped into the breach,
and submissions, short, long, personal or theoretical, about web culture,
use, content, meaning, identity-on-the, identity-of-the, privacy, persona,
friendship, addiction, renunciation, and the whole can of worms, are
gratefully accepted.

--Heather
www.groksoup.com/site/Texting
www.cybering.com (plan to re-upload to michal's server this week)