The Internet Fad
The rapid explosion of Internet technologies is usually taken as unprecedented. I have not shared that opinion, because it seems to me to be “just another technology,” in terms of its utility to the average person. Some people were quick to adopt, while others were not. Technologies are constructed and fall into disuse in pace with their perceived utility. A case in point would be the invention of movable type by the Chinese, with its minimal use and slow spread to Western Europe. Western Europe found the technology more useful, and thus it literally exploded within a relatively short span of time.
The view of technological innovation as the product of “necessity” is easily thwarted— invention is more likely the mother of “perceived necessity” rather than the other way around. However, received histories tend to amplify this aspect—that a technology is created to suit a need rather than providing a more accurate appraisal of the “needs” created by the technology. As another case, one might consider the birth of “information wants to be free” after the invention of the Internet. Suddenly, the “need” for access becomes a driving issue, which, though present, was not necessarily foregrounded in most discussions of print-based technology. The issue was separate, a matter for those in control of the printing and dissemination of works, not for the general public who consumed the works. Closing the gap between producer and consumer created new necessities. Information doesn’t want anything. The public that uses it does.
