Home
> Uncategorized > One ring to rule them all
One ring to rule them all
Žižek on the ongoing commercialization, that is, destruction, of the Open Web, where “Everything thus becomes accessible, but only as mediated through a company which owns it all.” Via @evgenymorozov. Some, such as Dave Winer, call this the creation of a silo or walled garden.
Isn’t a basic example of what ZIzek has in mind the increasingly powerful realm of apps for Apple products, where Apple keeps about 1/3 of the money users pay for the apps while maintaining complete and at times mysterious control over what apps can be sold? …and therefore, too, what kind of innovation can be attempted in their “walled garden”? The web began as a commons in the old sense of the word and is increasingly becoming a mall, which is a relentlessly commercial public space.