Failure of the Web 2.0

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shared with me a book written by Jaron Lanier. At first I just wondered who is Mr. Lanier and why he criticizes Web 2.0 so harshly. Well, after a couple hours of research I found out that this well-respected computer science expert makes some intriguing assertions that I believe are worth sharing.

In his book, he widely discusses the role of humans in the Internet and digital technologies, and how it impacts negatively. For that, he develop his thesis, based on the following three points:

• Individuality: His argument relies on the way the Internet is being developed, with tons of information but produced and shared by copycats, putting aside original ideas, which is reflected for him in nonpersons–automatons or numb mobs. 

• Anonymity: He criticizes the fact that any worked done collectively, either through crowdsourcing or any other method may be manipulated by anonymous groups with no public visibility (acting behind the scene). 

• Capitalistic organization: For Lanier, the Web 2.0 and its big players, such as Facebook, Google, MySpace are the lords of the computing clouds and, therefore, they get all the monetary benefits at our expense, since they control the information we see and how we see it. 

For a better insight on his ideas, click on the video below. 

From my point of view, and probably not being a “Guru” like Mr. Lanier, it seems that he has gone a bit too far. With that, I am not saying that he is mistaken by highlighting the inequalities of the Internet or the mob behavior of the users, but I believe that the Web 2.0 gives us the opportunity to create original content, even if we are changing a little detail in an idea that is not ours, that change could impact in a way that it could lead to new creations.

On the other hand, the Internet is still evolving, so many corrections should and will be done in the next years, in order to keep the human being as the center of the system – at the end, the internet and digital technologies in general are here to do what we order them to do, and not the other way around. Anyways, this is a very controversial discussion and I this is just my humble opinion, so to build yours, I invite you to read: “You are not a Gadget”.