The free internet

When The Times of London began charging for access to its daily online edition, it was a watershed moment for my life as an internet user. The ethos of free and social and the commons was shown up, as with most things from Silicon Valley, as carefully constructed spin, half the conjuring trick leading us to a state of chronic and compulsive electronic consumerism (the other half of the trick, of course, is the creation myth as pronounced by its prophets - Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, the Google dudes).

I cannot use sites like Hulu, because I have the wrong IP address; I must pay for apps; I need to buy a life on Farmville; ESPN wants 10 dollars a month to read the good stuff - plus ads; now, I need to pay to read The Times. 

The internet, therefore, is moving away from an ideal information state, where that information is free and available to all, and moving towards the state of a mobile, electronic mall, open, blaring and neon, 24 hours a day. The second generation digital divide is not that the citizens of Africa cannot access the internet, or electricity. Instead, it is the three card trick that internet companies are playing on the West - increasingly, we the users are being channelled towards a pyramid where our few cents are becoming a hill of millions (or billions) for the savvy and clever and entitled.

A commie rant? Maybe, or maybe a lament from a jaundiced information idealist, who bought into the opening day publicity - free for all, free for ever, access to everything, anywhere, anytime, until the end of time. If I can't even read the paper now, how long is it until the search engines become fully monetized, a cent a time - surely the rub-your-hands-together end goal.