The Web is Dead Long Live the Internet

Anderson and Wolff disagree on who is to blame for the death of the Internet. Anderson blames our own predilections and the inevitable course of capitalism for narrowing our internet use to things we can get easily through the use of apps. People who are searching for products want them delivered quickly and easily; what we want, when we want it.


Wolff, on the other hand, blames dead pocketed businessmen seeking to control the web. He states that the website is more a thing of the past. Culture of the web has had low barriers to entry. Anyone can do it and anybody can be somebody on the web. Forces, or new big businesses, have moved into this space. For example, Facebook has kept people from going to the web. People are satisfied with just going on Facebook that they never venture out to other websites.


The Web is like a city. People mingle in this public universe. Apps are the suburbs. Whoever can afford it is segregating themselves, which replaces major pieces of functionality. The web does stuff for us. It is pure functionality. Apps are much better technology that represents a better business model. The web never truly goes away. Google controls the web. No one else can get into it. The only way to penetrate it is to build an alternative, which Facebook and Apple have both done.


Local blogs have begun to address community issues, which has in turn gotten rid of the need for the local press. The local press has abandoned communities that are using blogs. This ongoing trend of new media has destroyed many businesses while creating new ones. Netflix is a vibrate, viable movie service which has taken over and almost completely erased the need for HBO. HBO is in peril due to this new and more efficient ways to watch the movies you want. Media, according to Wolff, is a structure that gives us information, entertains us, does the things that we want it to do, and organizes the information of our everyday lives. He believes media that does not support itself is a futile gesture and is not good for democracy. Media that does support itself, either by people paying for it or by advertisements paying enough, is good for democracy.