
Wired's bullshit "The web is dead" graph - yanw
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/17/is-the-web-really-de.html
======
bl4k
Chris Anderson and Wired manipulate facts to forward their theories with
whatever new theory and bandwagon they are jumping on.

The data cited in 'The Long Tail' was not accurate[1], and actually supported
the counter-argument. 'Free' was similarly vague[2] and inaccurate[3].

The entire m.o of Anderson seems to be to take a concept or theory that sounds
interesting and package it in laymans terms for a gullible public. It is
presented as 'research' or a 'breakthrough' and most average readers suck it
up, but these theories are usually far from.

To see them doing it again with this latest theory is no surprise. Anderson
really doesn't let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially when
there are magazines and books to sell, and high-priced speaking gigs to book.

(see also the excellent: [http://dashes.com/anil/2009/07/free-criticism-and-
science-wi...](http://dashes.com/anil/2009/07/free-criticism-and-science-
without-data.html))

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail#Criticism>

[2]
[http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/critici...](http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/criticism-
of-chris-andersons-free/#comment-3630)

[3]
[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/09070...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell)

~~~
jonknee
tl;dr Chris Anderson is like a less convincing Malcom Gladwell.

~~~
kmfrk
_Free_ also ran into some nasty plagiarism accusations:
[http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/06/24/the-chris-
anderson...](http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2009/06/24/the-chris-anderson-
plagiarism-controversy/).

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mikeryan
Measuring "the web" based on amount of bandwidth used is kind of a ridiculous
metric. Time spent engaging (or some such metric) with a particular internet
service might be more relevant.

Video uses a seriously disproportionate amount of bandwidth per use.

~~~
StavrosK
Next up: Ants are extinct! Their proportion of total mass compared to
elephants is almost zero.

~~~
amirmc
"On average, ants monopolize 15–20% of the terrestrial animal biomass"

<http://www.pnas.org/content/97/26/14028.full>

~~~
jacquesm
That was StavrosK's whole point, he's obviously aware of it or he wouldn't
have picked that particular example.

Give the guy some credit.

~~~
StavrosK
Thanks, it's a bit odd that people didn't get it from picking a ubiquitous,
numerous species versus one that's almost extinct...

~~~
jonny_noog
Perhaps your original intent would have been more immediately obvious if you
had chosen a different animal that's also almost extinct, but not synonomous
in people's minds with large size more so than the fact of their near
extinction? Or was that also part of the original intent?

~~~
StavrosK
I admit that the analogy is a bit leaky, but the point is that ants are
nowhere near extinct, even though they may be much smaller than elephants.
Where it breaks down is if you consider the number of ants vs elephants
globally. I probably shouldn't have said "total" mass, just relative mass.

------
shadowsun7
Manipulated data sets are like bikinis - they show you what they want to show,
and hide the bits that you want to see.

~~~
barrkel
The way I heard it was that what they conceal is more important than what they
reveal.

~~~
jokermatt999
It seems to stem from the whole "A good sermon is like a skirt: long enough to
cover the essentials, but short enough to maintain interest" (paraphrased).
Not the same meaning, but it appears that the phrasing came from there.

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TravisLS
Thank you for actually taking the time to make the graph we all instantly
thought of when we saw that ridiculous wired article.

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jacquesm
> Does 50MB of YouTube kitten represent more meaningful growth than a 5MB
> Wired feature?

I'd hate to have to answer that one with a clear consciousness. That
particular article, probably not. But wired has had some excellent stuff in
that past:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html>

I wished they did a lot more of that stuff than they do.

~~~
jokermatt999
It seems like they're mostly focused on geek culture and various things that
will get them hits/attention. I haven't really read Wired in the past, so I
can't make a comparison to their previous habits, but that definitely seems to
be their tone/focus. I subscribed to their RSS feed, but quit after a while
because they simply had too much noise to signal. They do post quality stuff
occasionally, but I prefer to just let that come to me rather than try to sift
it out.

------
ugh
Does anyone remember ye olde times before 2000 when we all still had to rely
on DNS? Good thing that clunky crap is long dead!

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lostbit
Video became part of the _web experience_ long time ago. It can't be placed in
a separate class unless it's IPTV or something that does not use a browser.

I don't understard why DNS was ever proportionally bigger than e-mail or
Telnet.

In addition, if they wanted to say that more non-HTTP applications are on the
net, they should point an increase in the "Other" class in the graph.

I guess they've choosen the wrong graph to support their article.

~~~
Gormo
DNS was used to resolve hostnames for almost every other type of internet
traffic, including email and telnet, even in the early '90s. As the size of
data increased over the years, the size of DNS queries didn't change much, so
its proportion of overall bandwidth usage quickly disappears from view in the
graph.

Most of the video traffic is likely transferred over HTTP and accessed via web
interfaces such as YouTube, so it's a bit disingenuous to distinguish video
from web traffic - if you're going to make that distinction, why not put
images in their own category as well?

------
api
#!/usr/bin/ruby

vapid_pronouncement = "#{dictionary.get_noun} is dead."

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Why the downvotes? It's totally true. If the title includes "is dead" or
"killed so-and-so" then it's going to be bullshit.

~~~
StavrosK
Because who puts ruby in /usr/bin?

~~~
ROFISH
It's /usr/bin/ruby for the default preinstalled 1.8.7 on OS X.

~~~
digitallogic
Same for Ubuntu 8.04

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thelibrarian
So, by this metric shouldn't they be arguing that DNS died in the mid-90's,
and that nobody uses it anymore?

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nir
You don't read Wired for the articles.

~~~
dasil003
Wired is Maxim for people who can't get laid.

~~~
josefresco
Maxim is for dumb guys who don't get Wired (or laid).

~~~
dasil003
That too.

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msy
It's a pity because I usually find a needle or two of interesting ideas in
Wired but having to sift through a haystack of hyperbole and poor logic is
deeply unenjoyable.

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palish
It's not really acceptable on HN to editorialize the title like that. In fact,
I believe it's explicitly forbidden.

~~~
davidw
I don't get why people are upvoting this story so much. Yep, Wired's wrong,
but it's really not very interesting.

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shortformblog
My problem with the graphic, beyond the proportional vs. accurate argument, is
that it's misleading even in the context they show it. Outside of things like
Skype, P2P is not an active-use process. Streaming video is clearly something
that people largely watch on the Web.

When I saw that article today, I just thought it was complete crap. It's
simply alarmist, the magazine form of using scary headlines to try to sell
newspapers.

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sbov
I don't know about anyone else, but I generally need the web to find my
videos. Same with my peer to peer downloads (assuming thats BitTorrent). If
the web literally died, it would take everything else in that graph with it.

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randallsquared
Assuming web traffic means HTTP, it's curious that it's not zero in 1990.

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NewHighScore
LOL, Wired likes to predict the future -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1612808>

