Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
A chilling article from The Nation asks if we are facing the end of the Internet?

Not in the sense that it will no longer be there, but in the sense that it would become "a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online". The issue is whether telecommunications providers will be able to offer differential levels of service to different customers. In other words, pay enough and you are able to get priority access for your data.

This risks transforming the internet from a democratic, peer-to-peer medium to a broadcast content medium. It is not something to be welcomed by those who see value in the Long Tail, in user-generated content rather than exclusively in the content produced by large corporations.

| posted by Simon at 12:17 pm