Expensive omissions
Lately I heard the word millennials for the first time. It was used by the keynote speaker of a developer conference I attended. The speaker was a bit nostalgic and spoke about how the world looked when he started coding. He argued the current generation takes todays technology too much for granted and they do not appreciate how difficult it is to ‘get stuff working’. Personally, I don’t consider myself part of that generation. When I first used computers and passed the MS Paint stage, I started to create websites. Shamelessly copying background images from other websites and printing stickers with my free .tk-domain name. “Come to my website!” Somehow I can’t seem to remember what kind of content I put on there, but I was keen to get more visitors. Typical.
When some of my colleagues tell me about their first experience with programming, they talk about how they hacked on their Mac 128k or Amiga 500. I only remember playing Cisco Heat with my brother on my dad’s Commodore 64. Some development started years later and I remember going to the local library for books about HTML and Java. (Sounds like JavaScript so it should be almost the same right?)
I wasn’t one of those early adopter kids, but at some point I started my first weblog. Mainly because I noticed having just a website wasn’t enough to get visitors. You got to have some form of meaningful content and I still loved building stuff with computers, so why not create a weblog? PHP was discovered, magic quotes where conjured and soon my first weblog was born. The use? Just posting short articles with witty comments about the world’s view of a nerdy adolescent.
That guy already had an outspoken opinion about open source software when he was still a teenager. Ranting about the evil lurking in Redmond and how they locked in every computer illiterate in their corrupted closed source software of hell. (I used to be such a sensitive guy) Nowadays, the world of computers isn’t so much about software licenses anymore, but more about software services. Whether Office 365 or Google Docs use open source software is of little consequence for the end user. However, an online mobile app-store preventing distribution of an app that promotes gay-rights can have substantial impact. So can an online blog tool doing something similar. The lack of transparency and freedom of closed source software has been replaced with identical shortcomings of online services.
Back in the day, when I preached about ODF and worshipped Torvalds, there wasn’t a viable alternative for the ‘digitally challenged’. Some of that changed after Ubuntu, but still. It was hard for them to use something free as in freedom. Fifteen years later we have a similar trend. There aren’t any viable, free alternatives to online services for the average consumer. I can see myself using Diaspora instead of Facebook or hosting my own e-mail server. However I don’t see all my friends and family doing that.
As I stated before, I like creating stuff on computers and I am passionate about freedom and freedom of speech in the digital word. So it is easy and fun for me to practice what I preach in regards to this blog. But what about my e-mail? No privately hosted solution can replace Gmail. Should I try explaining my mom how to use <complicated, less-friendly-solution> instead of WhatsApp to sent pictures of my little niece? And that her sister and the rest of her friends and family should use it too? That the only real reason for it is that it protects us and our democracy from possible oppression and limitations in our freedom of speech?
I am very enthusiastic about the rise of online services and how they find their way into all aspects of our life. It is shifting our relationship with friends, family and colleagues and our view of the world. However, cultural differences between users and service providers, commercial interests and sometimes just plain stupidity can cause a shift into the wrong direction. Possibly without us noticing. Consider that most Westerners have been living in a free society for 70 years. With such legacy it is hard to understand to go about your daily life without freedom of speech or the right to vote. Similarly, without a basic understanding of online services it is difficult to understand its consequences on society. We need to take care of both so we can protect what concerns us all.
