The Internet: Towards a Deeper Critique

Excerpt:

"A common critique of the Internet says: "The technology is great. But it is only accessible at considerable cost, and to a small percent of the population. Until we make it more universally accessible and bring down its cost, few of the poor can benefit from the technology."

Such a critique sees the Internet ­ towards which new information and communications technologies (ICTs) are converging today ­ essentially as a democratizing factor. At worst, it sees the technology as class-neutral, which can be as useful to the poor as to the rich, once it becomes affordable and universally accessible. The main problem according to this critique, therefore, is to bring the Internet to the masses. Or, as some would probably put it, to bring the masses to the Internet.

From Chiapas to the Balkans, from eastern Europe to Indonesia, popular movements have used the Internet to reach millions. Email and mailing lists have led to the emergence of virtual communities. Future e-commerce offers tantalizing possibilities to small economic players for competitive advantage and huge markets. All these have enhanced the seemingly democratizing image of the technology.

But today, the Internet's reach in most developing countries ranges from less than one to perhaps five percent of the population. In the Philippines, for example, it is currently in the range of 2-3%.

Optimists often cite Internet growth trends ­ a few percent a month in some fast-growing markets ­ to project that the technology will eventually be universally accessible at some future time. Then, according to this critique, the only remaining problem will be in reducing the cost of access.

A deeper critique of the Internet can be based on the following issues:

• Rapid Internet growth immediately results in vast expansion of markets for hardware, software, connectivity, consultancy and other ICT services. Except for some niche areas like data-entry, abstracting services, call-processing and similar labor-intensive services, the information economies of North America, Europe and Japan are in the best position to exploit this market growth.
• The Internet creates its own hierarchy of access that retains and may even worsen the gap between rich and poor.
• The Internet reinforces the automation mindset that replaces workers with machines. Even the new jobs the technology creates are subject to this automation mindset, resulting in loss of jobs and job security.
• The Internet's impact on physical and mental health has been largely unexplored in the public discourse. Problems with hands and fingers, with posture and with eyesight are the most common. But there are also incipient problems of Internet addiction and skewed mental development.
• The Internet is becoming more and more like television, though an interactive one. TV turned out to be an "idiot box" for many people. If it will be mainly an expensive interactive idiot box, the Internet won't be much of an improvement.
• The seductive powers of computers and the Internet are so compelling that they are drawing precious resources away from the major intellectual challenges of our time.
• In contrast to public spaces like the radio spectrum, the Internet has basically become private space owned by rentiers. Until cyberspace becomes part of the public commons, to move our lives into this private space is a essentially to fall into a trap.
• The Internet has deeply hidden centralist elements that negate its democratic and even anarchistic claims.
• The Internet also reflects an embedded globalist bias, from the widespread use of English to hidden subsidies by local users for international communications..."