4AAVC101 - week 11

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These are my notes from December 05 for 4AAVC101 at King's College London for the 2017-2018 school year. The lecturer, Nick Srnicek, is the author of two excellent books at the intersection of technology and leftist politics: Inventing the Future (with Alex Williams), and Platform Capitalism.

The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.

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The Future of the Digital Economy

Readings

Splinternet by Scott Malcomson (chapter 3)

Didn’t get around to this.

Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek (chapter 3)

Read this over the summer. Notes in Bookmarker.

The Stack by Benjamin Bratton

In the Recommended Reading section. Haven’t read it yet (it’s an imposing 528 pages) but it seems quite seminal so I’m going to work through next semester.

Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier

In the Recommended Reading section. I read this over the summer and was wildly disappointed. Brief review on Goodreads (longer one coming soon, hopefully).

Socialize the Data Centres! by Evgeny Morozov

its In the Recommended Reading section. An interview with journalist Evgeny Morozov. One of my favourite New Left Review pieces ever. I came across this issue over the summer, while going through old NLR issues at Housman’s, and was very intrigued by the title of this specific piece. Notes in Bookmarker.

Will the Internet Fragment? by Milton Mueller

In the Recommended Reading section. Haven’t read this yet but it looks interesting.

Platform Cooperatism (PDF) by Treboz Scholz

In the Recommended Reading section. Haven’t read this yet either but Scholz’ work has been on my radar for some time (he co-edited Ours to Hack and to Own

Lecture

in an ideal world, the Internet would be seamless, borderless, and equalizing
- initially, though, it wasn’t really designed as anything other than a communications protocol between willing devices
the major idea behind web 2.0 (besides its hallmark design aesthetic, which now looks awful) was that of the open platform
- think early Twitter, with its embrace of external clients/apps/data
now, though, it seems like the Internet is starting to move more towards closed platforms (aka walled gardens)
3 possible ways the Internet can fragment
- on a technical level (not the focus of this lecture)
- on a regulatory level (govt policies etc)
- on a capitalist level (as the important decisions get made by corporations, rather than democratically-accountable governments)
on the role of the state in the early development of the Internet (an inevitably US-centric take, given the outsize role the US govt played in the Internet’s creation)
- from 70s to ~2001, the state mostly stepped back and allowed it to grow on its own
- we saw a sort of globalisation of the Internet
- 9/11 changed the state’s relationship with the Internet, as it started building surveillance networks (PATRIOT act etc)
- at around the same time, China & Russia started asserting control over the Internet within national borders
  - similarly during the Arab Spring, when several states realised that they needed some degree of control over Internet access/content in order to stay in power
- thus we could see the rise of national borders in?/on? the Internet
  - possibly arising from the location of physical servers (since they could be subject to state regulation based on where the servers are located as well as where the company operates)
  - after Snowden leaks (2013), the dangers of putting all your data under (say) US jurisdiction became clear, spurring a drive toward data localisation
- data sovereignty: countries have power over their own data since it’s physically stored within the country
  - China/Russia (could? do?) pressure local businesses to use local suppliers
  - “European internet” proposed as a way of avoiding routing data through the US
  - proposals for nationally-run DNS (since right now, it’s very US-centric), akin to phone systems
  - satnav systems are run by the US military (GPS is American-dominated); different states are considering launching their own satellite networks to counter that
  - digital protectionism in China where access to US tech giants is cut off, and development of local alternatives is fostered instead
on capitalism: is it compatible with fragmentation? does it drive tendencies toward greater or less fragmentation?
- organisational problem: search engines and online communities are becoming walled gardens, with the goal of keeping you in while keeping others out
- FB’s free basics program (which violates net neutrality principles) has led to confusion (in the developing nations where it runs amok) between FB & the Internet
- w/o net neutrality, we could see the rise of a giant toll system for consumers and corporations
- the FCC’s arg, otoh, is that it would give ISPs an “incentive” to invest in Broadband etc
- at the time of the lecture, the vote hadn’t yet occurred … we know now how that vote went
- could have global ramifications, though it’s unclear what exactly or how quickly they’ll diffuse
- possible benefits of ending net neutrality: the ability to foster creation of regional tech giants as an alternative to the current global ones?
we should differentiate between illegitimate and valid fragmentation
- firewalls, blocking spam, privacy etc

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