The internet enabled a shift to commons-based decentralized non-market production
Evidence
Legal scholar Yochai Benkler chronicled these developments in his 2006 book The Wealth of Networks. Benkler claimed that new models of commons-based peer production pioneered by FOSS would bring about advancements in individual autonomy, democracy, freedom, and justice, unless they were threatened by preexisting industrial actors determined to continue exclusive rights-based models, such as drug companies and the entertainment industry. Benkler argued that the internet allowed for a shift from an “industrial information economy” to a “networked information economy” focused on non-market, individual, decentralized production using nonproprietary strategies. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 77
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines Benkler’s core distinction between ‘industrial information economy’ and ‘networked information economy’.
- XREF: Links to Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks as the canonical internet-utopian text, useful anchoring for media studies context. — connects to: The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 283; Digital tools enable new decentralized forms of commons peer production. — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing: Embedding Common…, 193; Commons organizing fuses ethical common-good production with peer sharing. — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing: Embedding Common…, 151 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons
#corroborates(0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 283 - Digital tools enable new decentralized forms of commons peer production.
#expands(0.85) — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing, 193 - The internet shifted production from industrial to networked information economies.
#expands(0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 77 - Digital voluntary communities can produce collective goods unmet by states and markets.
#exemplifies(0.80) — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing, 188 - Commons organizing fuses ethical common-good production with peer sharing.
#expands(0.75) — Laura Albareda and Alejo Jose G. Sison, Commons Organizing, 151 - Commons function as social resources binding communities together, not just property rights.
#expands(0.72) — Emil Sandström and Ann-Kristin Ekman and Karl-Johan Lindholm, Commoning in the periphery – The role…, 10