L. M. Lloyd

I was reading a fascinating interview a Facebook friend sent me, and started to reply to him, but realized it was a long enough topic to deserve a post. One of the things I saw mentioned in the interview, was a concern, which I have heard voiced quite a bit around the world, that people fear 'the Internet' will soon be under siege by corporate forces, who will seek to "own and control it." Now I don't know if it is because I have actually been involved in the Internet industry for so long, or if it is because I am American, and we have a bit of a head start on a lot of the world when it comes to the Internet, but for whatever reason, my perspective puts me in the unenviable position of delivering an uncomfortable message to the everyone. I'm afraid that fight already happened around the turn of the century, and the corporations already won. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding around the world, of what kind of control corporations want from the Internet, which is probably the reason people don't understand that they already own everything on the Internet.

See, corporations don't want to keep people off the Internet, they don't want to decide who does or doesn't use the Internet, they don't want to control what you do on the Internet. They want three simple things.

1. To convince as many users as possible that their service is essential to their life.
2. To use this perception to raise their stock valuation.
3. To find a way to monetize as much of their user's lives as possible.

I know it sounds obvious, but until you really understand this, you can't see how completely they have won this fight, long before most people ever realized it started. Let me be more specific. The author being interviewed, is specifically talking about the "Facebook revolution in places like Kashmir" and the "Twitter uprising in Iran." Now, some of my readers probably already see where I'm going with this, but please bear with me, because I'm not sure everyone gets it on first blush. Here's the thing, while you were focusing on how empowering these technologies are in letting homegrown populist efforts disrupt an entrenched power structure, you failed to notice that multi-billion-dollar American corporations just turned your revolution into a corporate branding opportunity. Do you have any idea how much money Coca-Cola would pay to have Egyptians throw off the yolk of oppression, and then stand arm in arm signing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke?" Yet that is exactly the kind of priceless branding opportunity these revolutions are being turned into on Wall Street and Madison Avenue right now! I know I will probably be thrown out of the "white guys for world domination club" for pointing this out, but every message in the "Facebook revolution" is monetized with ad placements. Every news report calling it the "Facebook revolution" sends the stock up a tick, as it shows the deep value and market penetration of the Facebook brand. Every time someone posts to their profile about another person hurt or maimed, in the struggle for basic human dignity, it is another dollar in some American billionaire's pocket. I assure you, they not only already own the Internet, now they own your revolution too, and I only kind of mean that in an inflammatory, hyperbolic way. If you look at the terms of use, while it of course doesn't give them ownership of your revolution, it does pretty much give them ownership of the historic record of it.

It is really the ultimate triumph of corporate cultural imperialism. It is the kind of coup the American government only wishes it could pull off. Not only do the indigenous people do all the work, and the corporation makes a profit off of it, but when it is all over, the indigenous people are actually grateful to the corporation for providing them with the corporate-profit-generating tools! The most amazing part, is the corporations are really only offering perceived value in this whole deal. There is nothing, technically speaking, that you could do with Facebook or Twitter, that couldn't be done with any number of freely available open source tools, a little IT knowledge and an offshore hosting account. Nonetheless, here we find ourselves in the position where intelligent people are seriously discussing their concerns that big business might take over the Internet, and keep people from getting to their Twitter and Facebook, as if those aren't big business. Well, I hate to break it to you, but too late.

The good news is that none of these companies care what you do with their tools, as long as you keep generating revenue. Overthrow your government, tell people your favorite movies, coordinate humanitarian efforts, let people know what you had for lunch, or organize an effort to oppress an ethnic minority, they don't care, as long as they can monetize your traffic, and spin it to increase the stock price. Let's not pretend, however, that we have to keep careful watch on the Internet to make sure it isn't taken over by powerful corporate interests. That ship has already sailed.