It started with a comment I left a few days ago in response to a Mark Evans post, where Mark was questioning the future of the newspaper industry. Then I read a quote from Joshua Micah Marshall that seemed to echo my thoughts, but I don’t think that was his intention. He is saying:
Think of [the Internet] like Cable TV. Anybody can start a cable channel. But if you can’t get on TimeWarner Cable here in Manhattan, for me you might as well not even exist. The Internet could work like that.
He goes on to say that the risk of a non-neutral internet is that all of the alternative voices won’t be heard.
Then I read Matthew Ingram’s posting on Web 2.0 – followed by Nicholas Carr’s Numbskull Factor, and that is how I ended up here. As an aside, I think the power of hyperlinking is underappreciated.
Exploring alternate scenarios. Isn’t it possible that all voices can be distributed the same way they are today, but within the same pipe of a commercial mainstream? You would still have a democratized global distribution network – like having an infinite number of community access channels on cable – to ensure that no voices are silenced (see my usual caveat that it is ok for nations to define some content as illegal).
The Web provides a platform for all – a global Speakers’ Corner – regardless of how off-beat their message might be. As Nick wrote:
No matter how vast, a community of mediocrities will never be able to produce anything better than mediocre work. Indeed, I would argue that the talent of the contributors is in the end far more important to quality than is the number of contributors. Put 5,000 smart people to work on a wiki, and they’ll come up with something better than a wiki created by a million numbskulls.
To get back to the future of newspapers: the challenge in a fully democratized publishing universe, with no barriers to entry enabled by a global broadband distribution network, is for the voices of trust, authority and depth of knowledge to not only float to the top, but to be recognized and valued.