Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
For some reason, this morning I wound up reading this article about Google, published six years ago in the London Review of Books. John Lanchester concludes--and remember, this was in 2006:
Putting all this together, we reach the conclusion that, on the one hand, Google is cool. On the other hand, Google has the potential to destroy the publishing industry, the newspaper business, high street retailing and our privacy.
And, why, goodness--that's just what it did! If I'd really grasped this, I probably would have spent the past six years differently.
The best historical analogy for where Google is today probably comes from the time when the railroads were being built. Everyone knew that trains and railways would change the world, but no one predicted the invention of suburbs. Google, and the increased flow of information on which it rides and from which it benefits, is the railway. I don’t think we’ve yet seen the first suburbs.
I think we're beginning to see the suburbs--and they look horrible to me.
While many conservatives are wondering whether the sexual revolution was overall bad for women, I'm much more concerned that Google--and the Internet, generally--have destroyed the publishing industry, the newspaper business, high street retailing and our privacy, with consequences that have certainly been more deleterious to my happiness than the sexual revolution.
I have an ominous feeling about what the death of publishing and newspapers really means, a feeling that may not entirely be connected to the catastrophe it represents for me, personally, although it's hard to say.
As for the death of privacy, I'm dead certain we'll all live to regret that.
What do you think--was the Internet a big mistake?
***
Update: Thanks, E.J.! We love you!
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
I don't lament the loss of newspapers, in the US they have been largely useless for 20-30 years except for sports and coupons. Magazines are suited to the web -- with their long and shortform content -- they can be both timely and more leisurely informative. The greatest effect of the internet generally will be on books and it is unclear how that will play out. Our patience with books is a casualty. Why read one long book when i can read 50 short articles? Hard to tell if this will be good or bad. Certainly being a book editor is not a wise career choice for the young.
May '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
No the internet was not a big mistake, we talk to our two teenaged daughters who are going to high school in Canada twice a week, we just sent the youngest one over there, and the elder daughter has been there for two years. We've not been in the same room with the eldest daughter for just over two years now, but we see her twice a week and have long fun conversations with her via Skype, face to face, we often share meals together, she eats dinner while we have a late breakfast. I've been able to reconnect with some old friends, I get to see my aging parents and talk to them at length all the time too. Besides Claire, I found Ricochet on the web, found your wonderful writing have have purchased both your fine book about Lady Thatcher and two of your father's books. I most likely would have never have found these books without the net.
What about the whole self-publishing aspect of the web, with e-books? Sure the buggy whip companies cursed the motor car, but like any new tool, this can be used for good or ill.
Oct '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Can we really, from this vantage point, seriously regret the death of the big publishing houses or the monodailies? Regret their senescense and corruption, maybe, but not their overdue dirt nap. Likewise book shops and libraries, which are often just brick-and-mortar soap boxes for the Left.
May '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Once upon a time I spent several hours each weekend at the library reading periodicals to which I didn't subscribe. Now I am better informed and have not darkened the door of any library since about, oh, 2005.
Oct '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
We live in the world we have. The internet has been the greatest enterprise in history for allowing man to travel to (virtually) and communicate with the world that books can only describe and show static pictures of.
As for books... my eyes do not allow me to read even large print editions for long periods. Kindle has given me back the joy of reading, and even opened the opportunity to self publish. Without the internet, this would not have come into being.
Your lament over Google is a different issue. It is a really great search engine, but otherwise it is another borg wannabe.
BTW The railroad was once thought to be the unstoppable monopoly. Mankind's future inevitably tied to the railroads. NOT!
What will be the thing that moves the internet into the past? I do not know, and I doubt any of us could give an accurate shape to it's replacement.
As for newspapers and paper books. They will be the basic mode for some people as long as they are remembered. And then...
May '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
In the same way we regret railroads maybe. Like the railroad, we learn to live with it (the photo is the view out my front door).
Feb '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
The truth about is on the Internet, not in the MSM. At least not in the Washington Post of the New York Times.
Aug '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
As a reader, especially of older and out of print books the Internet has been wonderful - I'm thinking of Abebooks and related sites. There is still the thrill of the hunt for obscure books, but it is now miniaturized.
Your post, however, coincides with my decision to begin to de-Google-ize my life. Lately I have been more and more unnerved by Google's Apple-like way of insinuating itself into every aspect of one's life.
For a start duckduckgo.com seems to be a viable search engine alternative with many excellent features and a far straighter privacy policy.
Edited on April 1, 2012 at 3:16pmJul '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
The Nostradamus in Me sees a manufacturing union lobbying for subsidies for the makers of book shelves and bookends... and getting receiving them.
May '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
I should add: Now I use my weekends for what they are for, and I use my insomnia for reading.
Mar '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Jonah Goldberg has often pointed out that the newspapers have been dying for a long time (declining circulation since the 1960's) - the internet has simply accelerated that process.
As the movie and music businesses have been insisting for years, however, you've not really been buying the content when you buy that physical media (book, CD, paper, magazine), you've been buying plastic or paper merely as a content delivery mechanism as a user-lease of their intellectual property. The content is still there on the 'net, just delivered in a different form with a different subsidy mechanism. We'll cope as people find new ways to deliver info and still make money.
As for online privacy, I would like to find a legal way to reign in Google, but they aren't much different in their intent than all of the other data clearing houses have been for decades, they're just more efficient. Look at the barrage of junk mail we've all been receiving for years - that's targeted advertising from companies that know where you work, what you do, and what you make. Only way to stop that is to change laws.
Oct '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Isn't the internet as neutral as any tool? It's that dang perfidious Ricochet that I want to lodge a complaint about. Chews up my Sunday mornings and other large chunks of time.
May '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
If I were a "journalist" (scare quotes intentional) , serious writer, or opinion columnist I would be upset about the rise of the Internet. Fortunately, I am a news consumer, and the Internet has been nothing short of a miracle. I cannot imagine going back to the single, far-left daily in my hometown as one of the few sources of news.Be careful throwing wooden shoes into the machines.
Mar '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
As others have noted, some concerns about Google also extends to the way that Facebook and Twitter and some other sites of this kind have slowly begun to alter the way that people socialize. The slow death of the private that some elements of the internet portend is of great concern not only because it eliminates some of the reflective time that forms the basis of culture in any serious sense, but also because it is a despotic impulse: in an age where everything is said and everything is documented moment by moment, a person who chooses not to partake in this--one who chooses privacy in some limited sense--becomes suspicious in the public eye.
Meanwhile, those who say that the internet is the democratization of information are on to something. To me, this is even more concerning than the first set of observations. To hint at the fundamental problem this presents: in our time, information is increasingly coming to be conflated with knowledge, rather that some incomplete features of knowledge being packaged in a certain way. Coupled with the trends noted in the first paragraph, this could foreshadow a grim future for human liberty and free inquiry indeed.
Oct '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
As a software engineer with an interest in economics, I'd observe a couple of things:
Others have already made the essential A. J. Liebling "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one" point better than I could, so all I can do is recapitulate its significance.
Jul '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Google is the problem, not the Internet. The Internet provides what the mass media pretended to provide and BBSes and CompuServe provided for a few, a diversity of opinion and the ultimate in committees of correspondence.
I have blocked Google at the firewall for almost a decade. When someone started making block requests on my internal DNS server (refused and logged by configuration as a security matter) I traced it to Google search requests. Block requests are used to map networks, a typical first step when hackers are attempting to infiltrate private networks. My internal DNS is on a private network behind a NAT firewall, it cannot be queried directly from the Internet. I was able to reproduce the block query by performing a search from the Google web site.
Google was using my family's Internet searches to try to map my network, far exceeding the bounds of my expectations for privacy in a search transaction. Connect that with the fact that, at the time, they had seven known contracts with US intelligence agencies, the nature of which were classified, and the fodder for conspiracy theories are endless.
Do not expect your government to protect you on the Internet.
Nov '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Crow's Nest:
Meanwhile, those who say that the internet is the democratization of information are on to something. To me, this is even more concerning than the first set of observations. To hint at the fundamental problem this presents: in our time, informationis increasingly coming to be conflated with knowledge, rather that some incomplete features of knowledge being packaged in a certain way. Coupled with the trends noted in the first paragraph, this could foreshadow a grim future for human liberty and free inquiry indeed. · 0 minutes ago
I agree that some trends are disturbing, particularly the issue of privacy, but has this (the conflation of "information" with "knowledge") not been true since the advent of newspapers and widespread literacy?
Meanwhile my impression is that readers are not neglecting books and that audiobooks, especially, are flourishing. If the medium is the message, it hasn't yet swallowed up the whole.
Oct '10
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Huh? Don't expect anyone to protect you on the Internet, any more than you would expect someone else to protect you in your own home.
Mar '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Nevertheless, I should note that despite the problematic character of some features of the internet, there are also some extremely positive features of this technology. Because we are cautious or wary of its problematic character does not mean we are luddites.
As in any democracy, the internet makes space for the new, the fascinating, the quirky, and even has nooks occupied by the beautiful and noble. It allows us to have access to much of the world abroad no matter where we are, and makes it more difficult for corruption or some kinds of tyranny to smother the flow of ideas. Its architecture also suggests that for the first time in human history, there may be a way to preserve some very important things from being destroyed by accident or misfortune.
By being awake to its dangers, we are more likely to ensure its responsible use.
Apr '11
Re: Is There Any Way to Shove Google Back in the Tube?
Well I would like to point out that technological progress is always good, for consumers. While it is not always good for producers. The way I see it though everyone is a consumer only very few people are producers. There will always be producers naturally, just not necessarily the same people who were producers before. As technology changes and improves markets will change and industries with them. I hardly see the need to lament over publishing and news papers any more than I do for small farmers, cobblers, and steam boat operators.
The real challenge I see coming from google and the internet is in IP laws. The inherit disconnects of intellectual property from the reality of actual property. In the past it was easy to say don't make copies of a book when the only way to do so was to buy expensive machinery and supplies. Now all you need is "Ctrl+C" and every day hardware. Further more making copies is the way by which people share digital information. People have always been able to share information, books, music etc. but you will see a move by companies to restrict this through law.