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It appears that the Internet has a new shiny in Dreamwidth. Everyone is rushing to pimp out their asthmatic grandmother for an invite code because they're sure DW isn't going to be like that icky, profit-minded company of dirty Commies. They'll certainly never have offensive ads or succumb to the big-dicked incubus of profit margins.
My ass.
Look, I believe that Denise and Mark mean what they say. I don't think they're hucksters selling people a bill of goods. They truly think they can survive sans ad revenue and will never have to sell out to corporate America or crazy, sexually-repressed fundamentalists. Maybe they won't. I don't know them. Maybe they're steel-jawed idealists with Daddy Warbucks' wallet. Maybe DW will prove the egalitarian utopia that so many want it to be.
But I do know people. Most of them are lazy, entitled creatures of habit. If you offer them a choice between free merchandise or slightly shinier merchandise for which they must pay, most will choose the freebie and make do with their hobo bargain because it was free. They might bitch that it's not quite what they wanted or needed, or that the service sucks, but they won't give up their freebie, and if you dare suggest that they pony up for better service, they'll howl that they shouldn't have to and scream that such common sense isn't common sense at all, but a further insidious example of classism and privileged thought. Free stuff should be of the highest quality, and the fact that it isn't isn't a hard reality of production costs but a global conspiracy perpetuated by wealthy assholes who don't want the poor to do anything but make them wealthier. Cost for products and services is just another fascist tool of The Man.
So, everything will be fine until Mark and Denise realize that the number of freeloaders is far greater than the number of starry-eyed idealists willing to put their money where their convictions are. When that happens and they either need to eliminate free accounts to lower bandwidth costs or accept ad placement and reduce the services offered to cover the cost of keeping the freeloaders, the complaints and name-calling will begin. Malcontents will accuse DW of "selling out" the userbase for the almighty dollar and decry the corporate takeover of the Internet. How dare the DW owners value making the mortgage payment over the rights of the userbase not to be reminded that a world exists beyond the silicone sphere of the Internet, a world in which not everyone agrees. Mark and Denise will cease to be the rebels and will become the Empire simply because they needed to pay the bills and keep the dream alive.
No utopia has ever lived up to its ideal because utopias cannot sustain themselves in the face of reality. The resources needed to sustain the ideal simply don't exist in this world yet. Supply for it cannot meet the demand. Look at Haight-Ashbury. During the sixties, hippies extolled it as the perfect place to be, a communal enclave where anybody could be whoever they wanted to be, without interference from The Man. And it was, for a while, until so many idealistic, disenfranchised kids turned up in search of this Wonderland that the entire system buckled under the weight of too much idealism and too little experience with the real world. Those nose-thumbing kids who were so eager to piss on society and modern technology soon found out that living on the charity of brotherhood wasn't all it was cracked up to be when your brother didn't have a pot to piss in, either, or when you were lying on the sidewalk with a broken leg because none of your brothers had any medical experience. Idealism often dies an ugly death when the rubber meets the road.
We'll see, I suppose. Perhaps DW will be a success and I'll look like the village idiot, quacking ceaselessly from the puckered, toothless maw of my ass, but I'm in no hurry to leave LJ for greener pastures just because things might be better on the other side of the fence. And if I'm the last one to leave, I'll be sure to turn out the lights.
My ass.
Look, I believe that Denise and Mark mean what they say. I don't think they're hucksters selling people a bill of goods. They truly think they can survive sans ad revenue and will never have to sell out to corporate America or crazy, sexually-repressed fundamentalists. Maybe they won't. I don't know them. Maybe they're steel-jawed idealists with Daddy Warbucks' wallet. Maybe DW will prove the egalitarian utopia that so many want it to be.
But I do know people. Most of them are lazy, entitled creatures of habit. If you offer them a choice between free merchandise or slightly shinier merchandise for which they must pay, most will choose the freebie and make do with their hobo bargain because it was free. They might bitch that it's not quite what they wanted or needed, or that the service sucks, but they won't give up their freebie, and if you dare suggest that they pony up for better service, they'll howl that they shouldn't have to and scream that such common sense isn't common sense at all, but a further insidious example of classism and privileged thought. Free stuff should be of the highest quality, and the fact that it isn't isn't a hard reality of production costs but a global conspiracy perpetuated by wealthy assholes who don't want the poor to do anything but make them wealthier. Cost for products and services is just another fascist tool of The Man.
So, everything will be fine until Mark and Denise realize that the number of freeloaders is far greater than the number of starry-eyed idealists willing to put their money where their convictions are. When that happens and they either need to eliminate free accounts to lower bandwidth costs or accept ad placement and reduce the services offered to cover the cost of keeping the freeloaders, the complaints and name-calling will begin. Malcontents will accuse DW of "selling out" the userbase for the almighty dollar and decry the corporate takeover of the Internet. How dare the DW owners value making the mortgage payment over the rights of the userbase not to be reminded that a world exists beyond the silicone sphere of the Internet, a world in which not everyone agrees. Mark and Denise will cease to be the rebels and will become the Empire simply because they needed to pay the bills and keep the dream alive.
No utopia has ever lived up to its ideal because utopias cannot sustain themselves in the face of reality. The resources needed to sustain the ideal simply don't exist in this world yet. Supply for it cannot meet the demand. Look at Haight-Ashbury. During the sixties, hippies extolled it as the perfect place to be, a communal enclave where anybody could be whoever they wanted to be, without interference from The Man. And it was, for a while, until so many idealistic, disenfranchised kids turned up in search of this Wonderland that the entire system buckled under the weight of too much idealism and too little experience with the real world. Those nose-thumbing kids who were so eager to piss on society and modern technology soon found out that living on the charity of brotherhood wasn't all it was cracked up to be when your brother didn't have a pot to piss in, either, or when you were lying on the sidewalk with a broken leg because none of your brothers had any medical experience. Idealism often dies an ugly death when the rubber meets the road.
We'll see, I suppose. Perhaps DW will be a success and I'll look like the village idiot, quacking ceaselessly from the puckered, toothless maw of my ass, but I'm in no hurry to leave LJ for greener pastures just because things might be better on the other side of the fence. And if I'm the last one to leave, I'll be sure to turn out the lights.
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