The power of consumers

After watching popular ABC television show, Media Watch, last night (05.05.2008) where they discussed the future of journalism – especially quality journalism in the wired world made me think about the effect the internet will put on people like myself in the journalism world in terms of the ‘power of the consumer’. This episode of Media Watch focused particularly on the platform of demand by internet consumers as distinct to print media consumers. A focus point of the discussion was the difference in demands from internet consumers with a focus on celebrity news articles light reading supported by only one or two key news braking stories. A second discussion arose over the need for internet journalism to become commercially viable and not reliant on the financial support of the print media (Media Watch, 2008).

Media Watch link: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2235826.htm

There seems to be some form of patriotic fight to keep the internet free from the onslaught of gate keepers. Multi Million dollar companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner who want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. In other words they will have the power to fasten the upload speed of some web pages while slowing/demolishing the upload of others.

The who idea of ‘net neutrality’ and keeping the internet free is probably the best interest for all of us but just how free is out internet? There saying having government pass laws on net neutrality will keep multi Billion dollar companies from deciding what we can see and what we can’t see but isn’t the government regulation already changing what we can and can’t do on the internet.

Can the internet be regulated? Do we want the government to step in? Because once they do, what is stopping them from playing gatekeepers? Are we not already asking them to play gatekeeper and keep the multi billion dollar businesses away?

Whether you are for ‘net neutrality or against it, it seems to me that gatekeepers are inevitably apart of the internets future. But one side of the argument that seems to be forgotten is the power of the internet users. If these multi million dollar companies get their way and they start/attempt to tax content providers does not mean we have to do as they say. Look for a second at the marketing industry; it can be hard to get retailers to carry a new product however by producing a demand for your product the retailer eventually has no choice but to carry your product or lose sales. With major companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype etc all supporting net neutrality (which is quite obvious when trying to search net neutrality using Google, as the first pages only links to pages that are for net neutrality; one again just how free is our internet? Google are obviously regulating what they want us to see and what they don’t want us to see. But then again we have the power to force Google to deliver the information we want by searching specifically for certain elements that are against net neutrality like handsoff.org) even with the take over of these multi million dollar businesses if Google and yahoo refuse to pay the tax and consumers continually demand the use of these services than eventually there has to be a compromise.

What I’m trying to say is that even at present the internet is not completely neutral it is not completely free and I’m not sure it ever will be. But as in all cases of products it is the consumers that determine it’s out come. So even in the fight for the freedom of the internet do we need to involve the government, or can the internet continually be self regulated through the demand and consumption of its users?

References:

Media Watch. 2008. The Future of Journalism. http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2235826.htm (Accessed May 6, 2008).