Re: <nettime> Has Facebook superseded Nettime?

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>]

There is only one reason for written exchanges to move to centralized
systems (aka "web"): advertizing and discussion-unrelated data mining.

When you interact only with the local machine when reading or typing
(such as mail or usenet) it is very hard to sell your eyeballs. When
your messages use distributed protocols to get to recipients, there's
no data mining (marketeers can't really use nettime web archives
- they want to know individual behaviour - cookies, doubleclick,
adsense.)

Other than that, centralized systems bring no value to participants
over what store-and-forward systems provide, other than pathetic
simulacrum of "presence".. You interact with the hard drive and
software, not the live person. Whoever put that "profile" is currently
fucking/talking with somebody, and it's not you.

So it makes all the sense for eyeball resellers to use centralized
systems, but it's really depressing that open alternatives are also
centralized, the currency being, I guess, "me-too-facebook" fame.

Which brings us to the main point - we don't really need most of this
"social networking". It's a benign time killer. "Social networks"
change notning ... at least no more impact on the real world than the
appearance of porn mags had on sex life, no matter how many hours you
spent on them every day (with some notable exceptions.)




      


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