I'm seeing a lot of this meme that the internet is gentrifying, and I think it's worth discussing. I'm certain the internet isn't getting more gentrified over time.
The internet was extremely gentrified when it was populated only by a relatively tiny elite which tended toward prestigious academic affiliations and higher status. Even the old BBS scene, though a little more populist and accessible to people at home with phone lines and home computers, looks pretty genteel and exclusive by modern standards.
The internet sure felt a lot more democratic when issues like DDOS, doxing, spam, child porn distribution (just to name a few) were not that hard to avoid, so measures against them did not feel that urgent. But that atmosphere is directly related to the selective nature of the audience. Things as small as the introduction of AOL users to USENET caused massive upheavals back in the day. The "barbarians" were at the gates.
It's not coincidental that Facebook built traction against Friendster, etc. largely by restricting to people with academic affiliations, Reddit got its start from a userbase that was more "selective," etc. But then the floodgates are gradually opened to the "barbarians" who were very unlikely ever to have patronized USENET, a BBS, or even an early-2000s phpBB.
In reality, that ratchet only moves forward, and the internet population gets more and more like the general population. Pervasive commercialization is actually part of that trend away from gentrification. It's not gated communities, it's Wal-Mart, payday loan joints, low-end casinos and hawkers in the streets. It's not Singapore, it's a developing country. And for better or worse, nobody can do anything about that.
The internet was extremely gentrified when it was populated only by a relatively tiny elite which tended toward prestigious academic affiliations and higher status. Even the old BBS scene, though a little more populist and accessible to people at home with phone lines and home computers, looks pretty genteel and exclusive by modern standards.
The internet sure felt a lot more democratic when issues like DDOS, doxing, spam, child porn distribution (just to name a few) were not that hard to avoid, so measures against them did not feel that urgent. But that atmosphere is directly related to the selective nature of the audience. Things as small as the introduction of AOL users to USENET caused massive upheavals back in the day. The "barbarians" were at the gates.
It's not coincidental that Facebook built traction against Friendster, etc. largely by restricting to people with academic affiliations, Reddit got its start from a userbase that was more "selective," etc. But then the floodgates are gradually opened to the "barbarians" who were very unlikely ever to have patronized USENET, a BBS, or even an early-2000s phpBB.
In reality, that ratchet only moves forward, and the internet population gets more and more like the general population. Pervasive commercialization is actually part of that trend away from gentrification. It's not gated communities, it's Wal-Mart, payday loan joints, low-end casinos and hawkers in the streets. It's not Singapore, it's a developing country. And for better or worse, nobody can do anything about that.