The Way It Should Have Been

I have been involved in computer software since 1975, when I took my first programming course junior year at Stanford University.  I was intimately involved with developing applications using data communications and networking for most of my career.

For many of the early years, the best software developers were a very eccentric group that saw software as a kind of art form.  They reveled in their counter-culture reputation and many of them disdained commercial influences. 

This was particularly true of the early Linux and Internet pioneers.  They saw the Internet as a shared resource that should be developed for the benefit of humankind.  They did not see it as something that would generate vast fortunes or megacompanies.  Many were associated with universities or labs, which also operated in a more altruistic manner in those days, unlike the modern versions that are mired in commercial and start-up relationships and are completely focused on making money.

The concept of open source software became popular as a way for these kindred spirits to develop code and allow it to be used by others without commercial gain.  There was an understanding that commercial software development would be undertaken for specific business purposes, but the idea was that the primary building blocks and infrastructure of the Internet and its progeny would be public property and free to all.

All good things fall apart, as they say.  Two things conspired to derail this trend.  The first was the Revenge of the Nerds deification of the computer programmer.  Suddenly it was cool, and more importantly, profitable, to be an engineer or a coder.  This brought in all the wrong kind of people to the industry and corrupted many of the formerly altruistic participants.

The second was the emergence of the massive venture capital infrastructure.  The money available for start-ups and entrepreneurs grew exponentially and tempted every clever developer or idea with a fistful of cash and the promise of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The Internet was first viewed as the ideal of an open society – information access and personal connection for all.  Programmers were proud to contribute their work to build up this incredible human resource without compensation.  But sadly, as the Internet evolved, the openness, idealism and public-spiritedness of its origins faded.  There was big money to be made. 

Open source search engines that allowed one to find anything became private companies addicted to ad revenue.  Social media that celebrated the connected nature of human society became similarly addicted. Both used the data they collected to manipulate users.

Imagine there was no google or facebook.  If search engines and social media were basic infrastructural pieces of a public service like highways and water supply, then we would not be facing the same level of privacy concerns and manipulation that threaten us today.  Imagine there was no Amazon, that all retailers would be equally accessible.  We would not have the increasing danger of an all-controlling single distributor of goods.

Both google and facebook make all their money from advertising.  This revenue has basically been robbed from traditional advertising channels such as printed media and television.  The Faustian bargain we have made with these megacompanies brings us many clever apps and gimmicks, but it also sells our souls, or more specifically, our data, in exchange for these tools. 

There is a balance to be struck between the free market and the best interests of a society.  Unfortunately, the debacle of revolutionary communism created a counter wave of uncritical idolization of capitalism that has created many modern monsters.

It is true that centralized planning and control can be horribly inefficient and paralyzing.  But allowing human society to develop without any plan or control also has its ills, as we are certainly experiencing today.

It is axiomatic in capitalism to assume that innovation will not occur without the incentive of profit and the freedom of an unplanned market.  But that is simply not true.  Innovation is a basic human trait.  The joy of creating something new is not dependent on money or even fame, though those rewards are certainly tempting.  The act of creation is reward enough for the best minds.

The early pioneers of the Internet, as well as a whole generation of engineers working on the US space program innovated joyfully with very little monetary motive.  It may be that innovation would not occur quite as rapidly under more planned circumstances, but perhaps that would actually be a benefit.  Rapid change often has disquieting side effects.

Adam Smith argued that all of society benefits from people pursuing their self-interest.  We have spent the last two hundred years equating that self-interest with wealth and power.  If we recognize that our self-interest can also be the joy of innovation and the feeling of contributing to a better world, then we might find a better path in this troubling time.