The internet’s many-to-many ideal collapsed into a many-to-one structure

Evidence

Some might celebrate the power of the internet to subvert capitalism and decentralize cultural production, but this power means little if a handful of corporations control the entire infrastructure of data appropriation and use. The internet, which originally represented a rejection of mass media, is being remassified. On a regular day, Netflix and YouTube account for half of all internet traffic in the United States, with massive implications for their ability to “buy” and distribute content for money or otherwise. The one-to-many model of mass media dissemination has simply been replaced by a many-to-one model, not the democratic many-to-many model we once hoped for. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 175

Categorization

• XREF: Directly contradicts optimistic accounts central to early internet theory; also links to the reader’s surveillance-school texts on remassification of communication. — connects to: The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms; The internet’s promise of niche escape collapsed into a mass culture of short-form content — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 522; Network effects embed monopoly tendencies directly into platform structure — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 80 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The internet’s promise of niche escape collapsed into a mass culture of short-form content #exemplifies (0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 522
• Network effects embed monopoly tendencies directly into platform structure #expands (0.75) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 80