I’ve always viewed the Internet’s weakness (and I feel it’s appropriate for all powerful and mighty things to have weaknesses) is that its content is still curated. People claim everything is on the Internet, yet it’s still not entirely true. Niche cultures or products are only available for sharing IF somebody chooses to share it. So having said that, it’s definitely the chance for something to get lost in the general on the basis that one doesn’t deem it important enough to share with the rest of the world. And luckily maybe through a combination of things such as lack of infrastructure, lack of digital cameras and generally people having a lot less time to waste on computers, you don’t have an abundance of interesting product archived cause so few examples existed in digital form during their day.
While web may still be fighting from a respectability stand-point, relatively speaking and I think you’ll agree it does garner more respect than print. I think the unfortunate aspect of web is that it has some my negative by-products that take away from the experience. The over abundance of spam, mass unfiltered content and the fact anybody can claim a soap box, these lack of barriers to entry have really opened the doors to a wide spectrum. You have real good shit but you have a lot of terrible shit that drags the average down I think. But of course, I’m focusing on the negative aspect of it all, print gets slaughtered by online by sheer numbers and interactivity. What are your takes on the re-birth or salvaging of so-called print via eBooks and readers?
I think with the sheer information onslaught, if you’re savvy enough to run a bullshit filter psychologically, there’s so much great stuff online. Someone’s into anything you want to find out about. Looking at searches that led to my blog, it’s funny how many people were running the same searches that I was running that were just finding disparate crap, so I hope I’ve sated that need for at least a couple of individuals.
I really love reading, and I enjoy just letting a paperback, or magazine get battered and espresso stained, so I found the notion of some fucking robo-book difficult from a conceptual point-of-view. I don’t get the Kindle at all. It’s the literary equivalent of those dumb arse plastic cigarettes that look like crack pipes. But I’m aware that I’m an enemy of progress in that regard. I think the industry should be wary. It would be pretty sad to see authors and publishers ruined by torrents, RARs, ZIPs and all that other stuff. But I can understand where the iPad and tablet boom will take us, with subscriptions, updates and the potential access to information, and can you imagine Google Books at the moment without having to use a cursor? I’d be happy to be able to flick through the Vibe and New Yorker back catalogue, even if it is just a simulation of the browsing experience. But seeing as I’m a luddite who finds paying for MP3s strange, whether I ever feel inclined to buy a digital copy of a book or regular publication is doubtful.
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