A human-centric internet.

“The architecture of the internet must support a global, universal micropayments capability. In this way, anyone could charge for information made available online, whether it is music or a program for a future robot. A silly YouTube-like prank might generate a windfall for a silly teenager, while a scholar’s writing might be only occasionally accessed, but over a long period might still generate enough income to be of use. People could then re-create the best social formula that has been achieved thus far in human experience. Middle class people could own something- the information they produce- that would give them sustenance as they have children and age.

“In order for this scheme to work, there would have to be some structural changes introduced gradually, as I explain in the book. This direction is the only way to create a human-centric internet, instead of one that serves the cultists who believe in information more than people. It would not attempt to make information free, but instead make it affordable. It is worth noting that this is exactly how the web would have developed if the initial design proposal for it, dating back to the 1960s, had been carried out. (This was Ted Nelson’s vision.) It is the obvious way to design the network if people are your top priority.”

-Jaron Lanier

I read Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget last night. It has me thinking pretty hard about what I want to use internet tools for. Lanier imagines a different web ethic than the one we have now, with a primary difference being that creators are compensated for their work instead of expected to give it away and make money on knicknacks. Though I’m not sure I buy everything Lanier has to say about the need to get away from the command line or the sorry state of music (though he’s certainly right about the sorry situation of musicians), it’s a book that demands critical thinking about the technologies we have so often uncritically adopted.