The Wealth of Networks (Yochai Benkler)

In reading the introduction and third chapter of Yochai Benkler’s book “The Wealth of Networks”, he gives many clear (and some not so clear) explanations for how and why the increased use of the Internet and networks are changing the economic ways we look at these technologies. It was in the third chapter, where Benkler used examples of some of his theories where the reading got interesting.

Benkler claims that there are three dimensions in which networked information improves the practical capacities of individuals. These are (1) improving their capacity to do more for and by themselves, (2) enhancing their capacity to do more in loose commonality with others, and (3) improving the capacity of individuals to do more in organizations that operate outside the market sphere (ch. 1, pg. 6). With these, he is showing that there are several different ways in which people interact with networks. It is now becoming more so that the third dimension is the commonality within our present society.

His first example of peer production and sharing outlined some of the key concepts of the open source movement. Much like last weeks readings, as well as the documentary Revolution OS, I have come to further understand the incredible importance that open source has played in the development, as well as deployment, of this system towards software today.

His second example of Wikipedia as a place in which users come together to gather their knowledge in one place shows several ways in which this works. He claims that Wikipedia requires self discipline, which it does. Over the past couple of semesters at UIC, I have learned that professors have a clear dislike/distrust of Wikipedia as source material for any sort of research paper. They often claim that you cannot verify that the information is correct. While I agree with this viewpoint in a certain respect, I have also always believed that most of the time if the information is incorrect, it will be corrected very quickly by other users. While this will not always make what you are reading perfect, I believe that it does improve the availability of information in one easy to find place. As with most things you read, you should be very skeptical of what you read, and know where to go to find differing viewpoints or facts. I think the big problem that will need to be addressed in the next few years in regards to academic use of Wikipedia, is that of attribution, since the ways in which we attribute information we get is changing rapidly as the society moves from one of single-author information, to one of multi-user generated information.

Another example that Benkler uses to advance his idea, is that of Slashdot as a relevance/accreditation system. In this, the users collectively decide how important something is. I have only referred to Slashdot occasionally, but the ideas of moderators helping to decide how important various articles and responses are is an incredibly interesting move forward. Now, the collective minds of many users are helping to decide what is important, and since the same users can set their preferences to decide what they will see (based on the ratings given by moderators), it becomes that much easier to personalize the content. Another example of a similar system is that of Fark, which allows senior members to submit stories and rate them, with the approved articles going on to the main page for the general public to read.

Finally, Benkler briefly addresses the concepts of “processing sharing” like SETI@home (as well as many offshoots) and P2P technologies. I think the idea of using people’s computers to solve scientific as well as medical problems to be one that could have great benefit in the future. I know people that leave their computers on overnight, unused, and this is a great opportunity to put it to good use. Secondly, the increased use of P2P as well as Bittorrent technologies to transfer information is having a great (and controversial) change on several different industries (ex. Music/Television/Film). It is a shame that these companies were not able to recognize a great thing and acknowledge near the beginning of these technologies that the future would be changing their distribution models. Perhaps if they had gotten on in the beginning, they would have been able to come up with models to still make profits. Since they didn’t, people learned that it was easy to obtain their music, television, and movies free over these technologies. As the past has shown us, once users learn how to use a technology one way, it is hard to convince them to pay for something that they have been getting for free.

But I’m sure I will have an opportunity to discuss this issue further as the semester progresses.