jollystomper
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2012
- Messages
- 6,513
It is a complex subject, but some of my "quick" views:
- The internet infrastructure - the highway - is great. I was fortunate to have seen the structure being built. Over the course of my career, I was fortunate to work on many of the technologies - sometimes very early in their lives - that are part of the infrastructure.
- It is what rides along the infrastructure - the content - that is a mixed bag. I would include technologies that ride on the infrastructure that allow activities (I am talking beyond ads) to be monetized. Like anything humans create, it is useful, but it is misused due to human nature.When you monetize activities, your goal is figuring out how to increase those activities. No much different than the drug pushers in my youthful neighborhood figuring out how to get users hooked so that they have more customers.
- You can tell these days how much companies that profit off the internet care about their customers based on (a) how easy it is to reach a real human being to address and issue, and (b) how easy it is to cancel their service and permanently remove your information.
- I have always viewed the internet as tool to make my "real life" more efficient and more productive. The danger I see is when one makes "internet life" their "real life".
- Search engines themselves have their bias. Use the same search term (particularly a "controversial one") on different search engines and you will get different results. I find the more specific one's search phrase is, the better chances to find what you really want. The less specific, the more likely your may come across things that are hard to unsee.
- It is said that alcohol makes one more impulsive and less inhibited. The anonymity, as well as the ability to easily be "fake" on the internet takes that to an even higher level.
- The fact that internet addiction is a real thing in these days is one example of regression. Sadly, it impacts children the most. If the internet existed when I was young, I would be in trouble. The big warning I tell you people is "no matter what anyone says, anything you put on the internet is forever". I think people views on the internet are influenced on whether or not they have raised children.
- Internet content has made it much easier to scare people.
- One of the humorous sayings I once heard was "the internet allowed crazy people to find others just like them, so everyone thinks they are the normal ones". I believe there is some truth to that .