You’re comparing a unidirectional medium to a bidirectional medium, just for starters. It’d be much more appropriate to compare the Internet to phone or telegraph, but neither of those are adequate either.
Consider that the internet enabled smartphones. Many other things did too, but the thing that separates smartphones from those other things is Internet. It turned an already cool wireless global voice communication device into the equivalent of like 40 separate devices you used to own 30 years ago, but that fits in your pocket, and can still do unbelievable god-like shit that just wasn’t possible back then, period.
Smartphones are so ridiculous that in many movies made today they have to pretend smartphones don’t exist, because if they did then the problems that form the basis of the plot wouldn’t—so I see a lot of movies that look like they’re set in circa 2000s, i.e. mostly present day with dumbphones. Anyway.
All this is not to say that anything is more impactful than electricity. I’m just saying Internet is not tv 2.0.
If it’s a bidirectional medium then how can isps possibly get away with selling 1Gb down/56kb up connections?
The truth of the matter is that despite technically being bidirectional, most people aren’t using the internet as a bidirectional communication medium. Measure it by data volume or time spent reading versus replying. The internet is mass media, and the fact that a client initiates tls doesn’t make it not tv2.0.
Consider what everyone is calling enshitification: it needs a lot of ink spilled to understand until you recognize that every example is just doing ads or making you pay a cable bill monthly. It’s either the normal ota stuff or a special wire you have put in to get hbo. The internet is mass media.
The idea of technically being a bidirectional medium isn’t even new. Old radios could receive shortwave bands that individual people used to transmit on. You could tune in Jim down the street or the boats in the harbor or the cops from your living room set. It wasn’t until the idea of mass media developed around the technology of radio that sets with only broadcast bands became the norm. There was only a tiny blip of hobbyist tv broadcasting because everyone knew what tv was: radio but bigger and more powerful!
Instead of just telling people how soft wonder bread is you can show it, and show a woman biting into it, make sure the lips are plump and red, yeah, wipe the corner of your mouth just like we practiced, okay now smile and wink like you did that one time.
Programs? Who cares! They’re just there to get people listening before the ad plays, to get people glued to the set before we tell you that bread is getting your dick sucked.
Why are we advertising a thing everyone already buys? So they buy our brand, our process, our raw materials and labor from our suppliers and stores! Seems like a lot of work to juice bread sales, but we put nearly every bakery in the nation out of business!
How could the government allow this to happen? The government did it! The airwaves were leased, sold and even freely given to commercial broadcasters with one catch: one day, they’ll ask a favor, some tiny percentage of the programming will be government messages. Maybe it’s emergency services or televised debates. Maybe it’s acting as a mouthpiece for the war department, maybe just running anti-drug commercials. No matter what form, one day I’m going to need to speak to those people who dutifully tune in every night, maybe directly, maybe through you. I’ll give you the airwaves and you can cultivate them into whatever you like, but you must do me this one favor.
How can people credibly be shocked by the existence of content mill “journalism” meant to maximize ad views and engagement metrics? The internet is mass media, bidirectional by requirement or technicality, but never in common use.
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The Internet is like TV 2.0?
You’re comparing a unidirectional medium to a bidirectional medium, just for starters. It’d be much more appropriate to compare the Internet to phone or telegraph, but neither of those are adequate either.
Consider that the internet enabled smartphones. Many other things did too, but the thing that separates smartphones from those other things is Internet. It turned an already cool wireless global voice communication device into the equivalent of like 40 separate devices you used to own 30 years ago, but that fits in your pocket, and can still do unbelievable god-like shit that just wasn’t possible back then, period.
Smartphones are so ridiculous that in many movies made today they have to pretend smartphones don’t exist, because if they did then the problems that form the basis of the plot wouldn’t—so I see a lot of movies that look like they’re set in circa 2000s, i.e. mostly present day with dumbphones. Anyway.
All this is not to say that anything is more impactful than electricity. I’m just saying Internet is not tv 2.0.
If it’s a bidirectional medium then how can isps possibly get away with selling 1Gb down/56kb up connections?
The truth of the matter is that despite technically being bidirectional, most people aren’t using the internet as a bidirectional communication medium. Measure it by data volume or time spent reading versus replying. The internet is mass media, and the fact that a client initiates tls doesn’t make it not tv2.0.
Consider what everyone is calling enshitification: it needs a lot of ink spilled to understand until you recognize that every example is just doing ads or making you pay a cable bill monthly. It’s either the normal ota stuff or a special wire you have put in to get hbo. The internet is mass media.
The idea of technically being a bidirectional medium isn’t even new. Old radios could receive shortwave bands that individual people used to transmit on. You could tune in Jim down the street or the boats in the harbor or the cops from your living room set. It wasn’t until the idea of mass media developed around the technology of radio that sets with only broadcast bands became the norm. There was only a tiny blip of hobbyist tv broadcasting because everyone knew what tv was: radio but bigger and more powerful!
Instead of just telling people how soft wonder bread is you can show it, and show a woman biting into it, make sure the lips are plump and red, yeah, wipe the corner of your mouth just like we practiced, okay now smile and wink like you did that one time.
Programs? Who cares! They’re just there to get people listening before the ad plays, to get people glued to the set before we tell you that bread is getting your dick sucked.
Why are we advertising a thing everyone already buys? So they buy our brand, our process, our raw materials and labor from our suppliers and stores! Seems like a lot of work to juice bread sales, but we put nearly every bakery in the nation out of business!
How could the government allow this to happen? The government did it! The airwaves were leased, sold and even freely given to commercial broadcasters with one catch: one day, they’ll ask a favor, some tiny percentage of the programming will be government messages. Maybe it’s emergency services or televised debates. Maybe it’s acting as a mouthpiece for the war department, maybe just running anti-drug commercials. No matter what form, one day I’m going to need to speak to those people who dutifully tune in every night, maybe directly, maybe through you. I’ll give you the airwaves and you can cultivate them into whatever you like, but you must do me this one favor.
How can people credibly be shocked by the existence of content mill “journalism” meant to maximize ad views and engagement metrics? The internet is mass media, bidirectional by requirement or technicality, but never in common use.