BUSINESS UNUSUAL:
What Ever Happened to the Cyberspace Revolution?

by gregoryp ^tm

Back in the early ’90s, when I was living in Berkeley, California, the word Revolution was almost always preceded by the word Computer. There was a computer revolution within our grasp, we were told by everyone from media-savvy advertisers at Apple to whip-smart intellectuals on the WELL to the "conferencing for the masses" crowd over at America OnLine. The computer revolution, with its individual desktop computers in every home, was going to lead us to a world of a decentralized power model, and the re-emergence of small tribal cottage industries that would have as much power as major corporations in acquiring, compiling, and processing data.

Unlike other revolutions before it, the computer revolution was super-sexy. Lone hackers sitting in front of their screens in no-name suburbs were going to hack the Pentagon, send misinformation around the world in the blink of an eye, and bring corporate America to its knees. A computer in every home and in every school was going to make children smarter than their teachers, causing massive social upheaval and a meaningful dialogue on dismantling the values of a totalitarian-type educational model. Individuality and difference would be lauded in this New World Order. In order to lead, direct, and even to observe the revolution within the wires, the smart revolutionary was going to have to learn how to use this crazy thing.

So we learned the machine. Studied it. We marveled at the beautiful socio-political analogies presented by network architecture, participated in collaborations with colleagues around the world, and gaped in wonder at the elegance of the open-source model of advanced problem solving. Along the way, perhaps, we saw ourselves become identified with the computer and the Internet, and perhaps a few of us even became co-opted by the very forces that we originally set out to destroy with our expensive tools for change. Let’s take a poll: how many of you have sucked greedily from the corporate till in the past eighteen months? C’mon, don’t be afraid – we’ve all done it.

And perhaps, somewhere along the line, you too became enthralled with the laissez-faire capitalism of Silicon Valley – you know, the one about how "we’re all owners here"? The one where they handed you some money and a big pile of company script, and told you that through your sweat equity you too were a capitalist, working right alongside your wealthier brothers by taking risks for the good of the company. And perhaps some of you won, riding that ride all the way to Wall Street or Nasdaq, and perhaps now you ride around Manhattan in one of those beautiful new Audis, cutting deals for content streams on wireless telephones, your revolutionary days a dim memory for what launched you into the stratospheric wonderland of global finance. Yes indeedy, the Cyberspace Revolution – it sure was great for business, wasn’t it? Business as usual, and the band plays on...

1 • 2 • 3