Das Leben ist ein langer ruhiger…

About a month ago I replaced my four years old Linux notebook by a brand new Apple MacBook. After spending about 10 years in the domain of Free Software a vendor of proprietary hardware/software got me to bed. I had never managed to run Sykpe on my home made Debian system, not to mention connecting my mobile phone with the notebook. Now I can synchronize the contacts of my Nokia phone with the iCalendar application via Bluetooth, play with VoIP applications like Gizmo, clink glasses with Claude on Skype, and even watch DVDs on my laptop…

When I proudly announced that now I am back in the wonderful world of multimedia, my friend, FOSS expert and assistant professor R. remarked dryly: “Apple? This is a step backwards, indeed. Wasn’t there a cool Linux company in Berlin which made possible these things with Free Software as well?”.

Indeed one can consider Apple a step backwards if one takes the number of tools (e.g. UNIX commands) an average User manages as a measure for media literacy. When I founded convergence (the cool Linux company in Berlin), it was one of my objectives to supply TV users with tools which enable them to manage their media consumption. At an early stage I had understood that licensing the tools under a Free Software License is a prerequisite to achieve this objective.

Allowedly, it is very comfortable quite simply to exchange data with my wife’s computer without thinking much. (No-)Need-To-Think is probably one of the major differences between Free Operating Systems (e.g. Linux) and proprietary Systems (e.g. Apple). A free system dares you to think. This trains your mind. You learn a lot about software and system architecture and one day you may even be the position to participate in the design of the System.

Perhaps this is Apple’s strategy with their Operating System: in the sense of evolution (therefore Darwin) Apple reeducates Need-To-Think Users like me to No-Need-To-Think Users. Less and less I use the command-line interface of my computer. I spend more and more time on the point-and-click surface of a proprietary iTunes Application. One day I will notice that I know as little of UNIX as of VMS, which I used on my computer in Heidelberg 20 years ago.

The driving force of evolution is the convenience of Users and the number of possibilities that are offered to a User in order to perform a given task. Instead of learning the syntax and semantics of languages (e.g. bash, perl, lisp) to phrase the tasks a computer has to perform, today’s general-purpose-tools (e.g. Google, Powerpoint, iTunes,…) enable Users to perform the tasks which have to be performed within the System (e.g. wake up, identify yourself, find a location, make a presentation, book a hotel, watch a movie,…).

7 years ago I wrote in my essay On Convergence: “Communication is a drug. The decision to be a user is utterly subjective and influenced by the drug lords of the communication industry”. Technically, Devices, Services and Content are independent in a world of Convergence. But if Users get accustomed to certain features (e.g. User Interfaces, Applications) of their Devices, there will be a “psychological dependency” between those Users and the Services which seamlessly support these features. The User Interfaces of my Apple and Nokia Devices illustrate how Device Manufacturers who understand the mechanisms of Convergence managed to bind Users to proprietary Applications and paid Services.

In the analogue space you are what you own. In the digital space you are what you do. Devices (e.g. memex) and Services can transfer a part of your consciousness (the psychological consciousness) to the digital space. Digitally Enabled Usages (DEU) can have a positive effect on the consciousness of a User in the physical space (e.g. access to knowledge about finding directions). Users start spending real money in order to extend the capabilities of their minds (e.g. mobile navigation devices). Users use natural resources (e.g. food, drink, oil) to support their bodies to support their minds to support the System (Devices, Services, Content).

Who controls the System? The drug lords of the digital media industry. They know the Convenience Factor and use it for designing superior Devices and Services. You and I are Users. By virtue of the Convenience Factor we will hardly be able to exist without a Device, access to the network and some Services. The degree of our freedom will depend on the amount of money we can pay to the drug lords.

If we agree on this we can choose between two ways:

• The inconvenient way: Users learn to grow their own drugs and become independent (design their own System, make their own Devices, provide their own Services, create their own Networks, print their own money). Then there will be a choice between different Environments (e.g. commercial, non-commercial) in the digital space.
• The convenient way: Users leave the design of the digital space to the existing digital media industry (e.g. Content owners, Producers, Service Providers, Distributors, Device Manufacturers,…). Then Users will have to accept every price (money, work, attention) the drug lords will charge for the Right to be a member of the System

This is what I call a beautiful piece of art. These Thieves of the Invisible really understand the nature of the digital space. Some quotes:

We couldn’t resist her beauty. She was a beautiful rich body of culture, continuously unveiling her generous and attractive forms at request, but never saying: “Yes, you can take me away”. This free cultural peep show started to drive us crazy [...] “like being constantly titillated, regularly being asked for money in order to possess one of the too many physical bits” [...] we wanted to build our local Amazon, definitively avoiding the confusion of continuous purchasing stimuli. So we stole the loosing and amusing relation between thoughts. We stole the digital implementation of synapses connections between memory, built by an online giant to amuse and seduce, pushing the user to compulsively consume. We were thieves of memory (in a McLuhan sense), for the right to remember, to independently and freely construct our own physical memory. We thought we did not want to play forever under the peep-show unfavorable rules. But we failed. We failed and we were in the end corrupted, and we had to surrender to the copyright guardians. We failed breaking into the protectionist economy. We failed, because we wanted to share and give away.

They “failed”, because they are artists and artists play the game of the corrupt art economy (value based on attention). Other people (e.g. the CCC-Abteilung Dokumentenbefreiung succeed in freeing physical bits, because they play the game of free speech.

Andy Kessler’s article Media 2.Uh-Oh contains an interesting definition of Media: Media is about control of a pipe and since we all can’t own pipes, [...] this tends to leave media in the hands of a very few moguls who get Wall Street to fund their follies. Media moguls are political entrepreneurs who adore regulation that keeps them controlling pipes. When the Internet came along the vertical monopolies started to fall apart and now those pipes are coffins. If media companies do not get horizontal they will make the same experience as DEC and IBM. Through slivers of intellectual property (patents) technology companies can control horizontal layers but now creating a media company on the Internet requires controlling virtual pipes across these layers. DRM is used to create and sustain these virtual pipes. One example is Apple DRM, an other example are the social links between friends in the closed systems of MySpace and Facebook. The business models to leverage social networking pipes rely on targetted advertising or creating impulse transactions. Yet another example for virtual pipes are MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online games) combining ads, social networking and direct payments of the players.

According to Andy Kessler the right answer of the media industry to this development is what he calls the go wide approach. Open standards based technologies like AJAX allow for a layerification of the Web – content and applications will go horizontal as well. The Media 2.0 value chains will be built by providers offering horizontally layered content and services independently (e.g. p2p distribution, search, ad sales, social networking, video, local media outlets, affinity group marketing, portals…). Easy to use p2p infrastructures will sort out the problem of the cost for bandwidth and and storage of video content. P2p distribution between cellphones will take away control from network service providers like Cingular and Verizon. Still someone has to pay for high quality output, so the crucial question is if there is an economical model to these virtual pipes. Andy Kessler quotes an insightful paragraph by Mark Cuban who states that even if there are no digital entry barriers the production values will inevitably go up. Thus the eventual economic models will be still controlled by the media moguls, because they have the money to make investments for promotion needed to attract the audience to the pipes they control.

I agree with Andy Kessler’s evaluation of the digital media value chain but I am not sure if he is right with his conclusion. Andy’s analysis starts with the assumption that Media is about control of a pipe and since we all can’t own pipes, [...] this tends to leave media in the hands of a very few moguls who get Wall Street to fund their follies.

I predict that pretty soon we all can own virtual pipes, because there is an open standard for those pipes and a free Open Source software implementation will be available soon. This infrastructure has the potential to sort out the cost for promotion, social networking and group marketing as well. The interfaces of this platform will enable users to negotiate the business conditions with service providers independently. Instead of money content creators and end-users will use protocols to exchange “value-expressions” directly. Therefore the eventual economic models will be controlled by the users (creators, providers of services, end-users), because they have the power to control the pipes.