Letters to the Editor
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Knowledge is Power
As it has always been. The Web has changed society in a deeply radical way, so deeply we won't be able to guess what's coming. It brings the power of publishing to anyone, supports thinly distributed subgroups and fringe groups, helps create new social associations that couldn't have happened previously.
Our ideas about information and freedom are changing. I imagine the wired world is very unsettling to some folks.
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Let's get one thing straight
You've never "personally" owned a software package. The only thing you had was a license. Web-delivered services simply shift most of the nitty-gritty maintenance of the software from client to server. You are paying for the software either way, the fees just may be structured differently and in one case it's not being delivered, it's just being presented.
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What Carr misses
I haven't read the book, but from other things I've read from Carr, I think he misses two important things.
First, all of those people contributing content would never do all that work for their tiny, tiny share of the profits that they are generating. Most of those Web 2.0 operations are lean outfits: Wikipedia's budget, for example, is minuscule. And they will continue to be so: the barrier to entry is low, so anybody making massive money will find a host of competitors willing to undercut them, just like Craig Newmark undercut the classified ad departments of the world.
Second, people are always contributing to the culture without payment, and they will happily carry on. If I come up with a clever phrase or a new idea, I'm delighted when people pick it up. I don't hide my best ideas from the Internet: it gives me distribution beyond my wildest dreams. The explosion of blogs (many of which people pay to publish) suggests that I'm not alone.
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Often the value turns out to be zero though
As the VC's in the period from 1996-2000 frequently found out. I mean sure, vaporous companies that promised to deliver 'value' on making and selling nothing but hype and noise saw their market cap shoot up to the skies. But ultimately none or almost none of them ever delivered anything remotely resembling 'value'. So who was duped? The people who clicked on hotairoutmyass.com or the people who were given options to work for them for free?
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What's new here?
The "software as a service not a product" business model is at least 10 years old, going back to the first web applications of the late 90's. It's gone by many names. I think I first heard it called "application services provisioning" about 1997. It has taken years for the thousands of application products to be converted to web application services. But the conversions have been going on, market sector by market sector, for 10 years now. Rosenberg is documenting the trailing, not leading, edge of a large, real technology shift.
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City-centric thinking, yet again.
Software as a service will make NO inroads with about half the US population. Why? Lack of broadband service.
I live in the sticks--not even the sticks sticks, but rather a mere 30 minutes from a major metro area. I pay twice as much for half the speed as I did in the city for satellite broadband which hardly deserves the name. It's NOT affordable. It's NOT reliable. It's not as slow as dial-up--which is what the vast, VAST majority of the people use out here--but it's still slow as f***.
Software as a service? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Not out here, man!
No, and moreover, unless the service is pretty much free, I'll stick with software on my Mac. You see, I still use a 7 year old copy of Photoshop and a 6 year old copy of InDesign. I don't need to upgrade and it doesn't disappear once I stop paying. Software as a service has the same problem that music as a service has: it disappears when you stop paying.
So, until US (much less world) broadband penetration looks like South Korea and until they figure out how to make cheapskates willing to pony up $10/month indefinitely, you can forget about software as a service changing the world. The infrastructure simply does not exist. Nor does the market.
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freedom online
Freedom to do what? The net delivers virtual freedom to go shopping, to get work done, and to inflict one's own peculiar creativity upon the world at large.
I've been online since the BBS days. Being online fostered a sense of community in the early days because it enabled people of like minds with non-mainstream interests to interact. It was exciting, and felt liberating at the time. But a virtual community is just that. Unlike virtual communities, real communities make demands on its members, and in return its members get a sense of belonging and ownership- sometimes whether we like it or not. In the virtual world we all become customers- strangers free to come and go as we please, but of no real consequence. This forum is a great example. I enjoy posting here when I think I have something semi-intelligent to amuse myself writing- but I don't necessarily assume that 1) a lot of people read it, or 2) that it is of any real long term consequence either to you or to myself. I will continue to do so as long as it amuses me, and when it doesn't and I quit logging on it will be as if I never were here. This is not a complaint- I get to read and respond to some very smart stuff- but it isn't interaction as much as it is a bunch of strangers broadcasting.
The net is now largely a commercial medium in the sense that it facilitates the interaction of strangers. For work this is an unmitigated blessing. I can access information that has been put together by the entire community of people in my line of work, which keeps me from having to reinvent the wheel every time I need to do something. It is a great shopping medium as well- especially for those of us who live out in the boonies. And the net has no doubt unleashed the creativity of the common person. But it is just another utility, and no substitute for real community.