"A 17th century Englishman was living in a house built with monopoly bricks, with windows ( if any ) of monopoly glass, heated by monopoly coal, burning in a grate made of monopoly iron. He slept on monopoly feathers, did his hair with monopoly brushes and monopoly combs. He washed himself with monopoly soap, his clothes in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen, monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread and his trousers were held up by monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. Food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper, monopoly vinegar and mice were caught in monopoly mousetraps."
Historian Christopher Hill
How the Internet was Stolen
Then & Now - Dec 20, 2022
I look at the history of the internet, from ARPANET & NSFNET, through privatization, to Tim-Berners Lee, Yahoo, Netscape, Google, eBay, and Facebook, examining Microsoft's antitrust court case and their battle against Open Source and Free Software, Bill Gate's Open Letter to Hobbyists and the leaked Halloween Documents. Then we take a look at the emergence of Surveillance Capitalism, and how platforms like AirBnb & Uber coopt the idea of the community and lobby politicians. Finally, we take a look at some alternatives.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to the History of the Internet
04:06 Building the Net
20:37 The Browser Wars (Microsoft vs the United States)
44:35 The Californian Ideology (eBay, Yahoo, Google and the Libertarian Mind)
01:07:26 The Raiding of Privacy (Surveillance Capitalism)
01:18:05 Facebook
01:26:07 The Theft of the Community (Airbnb & Uber)
01:40:31 No Place (Utopian Dreams)
01:49:38 Open Source vs Microsoft
01:59:24 Conclusion: Politics, Policy, and Alternatives
Bookmarks