SCN: Web and AOL

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

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Web of Deterioration

(John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine)---How often have you had to help a friend 
find something on the Web? This seems to happen over and over. And for 
the life of me, I can't see why it has continued for all these years. 

The scenario goes like this: (1) A friend can't find something; (2) the friend 
moans to you; (3) you go online and find it in 15 seconds; (4) you explain 
what to do; (5) a week later the process repeats. I now understand why AOL 
is doing better than ever.   

AOL used to be referred to as "training wheels for the Internet." Nobody 
says that anymore. It seems as if people like training wheels, and they're 
going to keep them on their bikes no matter what we say. In fact, if you told 
many people today that AOL is "training wheels for the Internet," they'd look 
at you as if you were from Mars. To most AOL users, AOL is the Internet. 
Talk about a marketing coup de grace!   

The success of AOL brings into focus numerous issues that many of us 
technologists simply do not get, and many of them threaten to compromise 
freedom and advancement on the Web. Here they are:  

The Public's Failure to Become Savvy. This should concern us all. While 
typical PC Magazine readers may possibly think that they have a 
competitive edge because they can do things AOL mavens cannot, they 
must also realize that there is a potential for AOL to take over content 
distribution to such an extent that other sources of information dry up. This 
should concern you deeply. It's your duty to show people the way out!  

The Success of the Sticky Site. How the heck did this ever happen? I've 
never thought much of the idea of so-called sticky sites that do everything 
they can to keep people locked into one domain. Don't you hate hitting a 
browser's Back button to get out of a site, only to find yourself trapped? The 
Web is about linking all over tarnation. Is it possible that people simply are 
not comfortable in an open world and need to be locked into a prison?  

The Passive Nature of Users. This is something that we don't like to talk 
about, but when you read the feedback letters for online columns, it's fairly 
apparent that users are passive. They'll accept whatever kludge is 
presented to them, and most people today like the status quo. Worse, there 
is every indication that younger kids, who were raised around computers, 
have no interest in them. They might get into a game or two, but that's about 
all.  

Porn. Sophisticated users don't want to admit this, but there is too much 
porn on the Web--and it's keeping people from floating around too much for 
fear of running into it. The idiocy of browser design has allowed browsers to 
reopen with more porn each time you try to back-arrow out of a site, or when 
you try to close the browser. The fact that this is tolerated by the World 
Wide Web Consortium, which makes the standards, baffles me. I can see 
my mom clinging to a closed system like AOL after having a porn-storm 
experience out in the wild.  

If that's not bad enough, there was the recent bust of some porn king who 
apparently couldn't get rich enough selling porn, so he double-billed his 
customers' credit cards. What a sweetheart! Can you imagine the 
headaches that the credit card companies had to go through over this kind 
of mess?  

Media Scare Stories. While hundreds of thousands of people chat online 
every day, the media plays up the story about the misanthrope who "uses 
the Internet" to dupe some innocent girl into his lair, where he kills her. 
"They Met on the Internet," the headline blares, as if the Internet were 
essentially the worst bar you could find in the worst part of town. You'd go 
there only to get into a fight or get killed. No woman should set foot in the 
place. That depiction makes people not even want to associate with the 
Internet, and it's a depiction that is definitely on the rise.  

When you put these issues together, they add up to big Web problems--a 
situation that spells money and profits for several of the big Web sites, 
where site operators know how to play it safe. AOL is the perfect example. 
Watch how every other big site does what it can to clone the AOL model. 
Yahoo! is ahead of the pack, producing an almost-aol environment. You can 
do e-mail there, go to an auction, read personals, read news. You can check 
in to Yahoo! and never check out, because--like AOL--it has created its own 
set of features to complement what's on the Web at large.  

Unfortunately, the Web is about freedom. And like all freedom, unless it is 
exercised and protected, this freedom is lost. The way things are going on 
the Internet, freedom will be lost very soon unless something is done.  

Copyright 2000 Ziff Davis Media






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