

Scoble: I'll go down with the ship - oliverdamian
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/02/commentary-winer-scobleweb/?intcid=postnav oliverdamian

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m0nastic
This article is helping me validate my theory about someone's opinion about
Facebook as a litmus test for how disconnected from regular people they are.

Dave Winer doesn't like Facebook (totally valid opinion).

Dave Winer doesn't like how centralized Facebook has become for people and
events (also a totally valid opinion).

But according to Dave Winer, he can't even understand why someone would use
Facebook: _"So Scoble, you can go enjoy whatever it is you like about
Facebook. I can’t imagine what that might be."_

This strikes me as someone with a complete lack of understanding for how
people use the internet. I see this increasingly, as people not only harbor
negative opinions about certain aspects of technology, but can't even
comprehend a world in which users actually like using these services.

I'm frightened that people ostensibly involved in the technology industry can
possess a chasm this deep between their own model of how things should be and
reality.

~~~
untog
A great thought, there.

I've had too many conversations with people who seem determined to _not_ see
value in Facebook. Suggesting that sending out a group e-mail is just as good
as a Facebook event. Or that e-mailing out a link to your private photo web
site is as good as uploading to Facebook.

It isn't. And these are sensible people. They just seem utterly unwilling to
even try out a web site they've already decided that they hate.

~~~
m0nastic
Yeah, I wasn't being facetious, I do actually find it concerning.

I worry that as the internet continues to expand out into society, and more
and more muggles make up the userbase; technology people will become more and
more confused by what the internet is becoming. And I see that blind spot
becoming dangerous as it relates to people's ideas for startups or technology
improvements. We'll be designing the technology to power a world we don't
understand, and that isn't good for us.

And make no mistake, we absolutely won't be able to keep the internet in the
shape we've become accustomed, no matter how much we might wish to.

~~~
pron
So you think the direction the world will take should be decided by the
masses? This is a valid wish, but don't you think people should try to educate
and persuade the masses? Point out something that they might have overlooked
in their infinite wisdom :) ?

~~~
m0nastic
No, no. What I find troubling is our belief that the internet will progress in
the way it "should" (based on our beliefs) rather than the way it absolutely
will (based on a way of increasingly replacing higher friction
interactions/services with ones of lower friction in an effort to make a crap-
ton of whatever arbitrarily agreed upon currency we're all using at that
point).

I cringe at the thought of anything being decided by the masses, with their
existing track record of music, movies, food, art, social mores, etc. I just
think we need to realize that at some point the internet will outgrow the
terrarium we've created for it, and at that point it won't be ours anymore.
And in the grand scheme of things, that's probably a good thing.

But if your entire belief system is predicated around the idea that you'll be
able to keep it inside that terrarium forever, I'm going to be really hesitant
to put much weight in your thoughts on technology.

~~~
pron
So a technologist should always go with the flow? Accept the inevitable? If
Western society is in desperate need of anyone, it's not someone who can see
where we're headed (we have plenty of those), but someone who's not willing to
accept the inevitable (if it is indeed so). We need more rebels!

Though I must confess my ignorance here as I have no clue whatsoever as to who
this Winer person is, or who's Scoble for that matter, so I'm not quite sure
who it is that I'm defending, but I guess I'm defending the principle.

~~~
m0nastic
I have no disagreement with your position. What I'm trying to articulate (and
I think I might be failing at), is that there's a difference between arguing
against something incredibly successful because you have a bunch of valid
reasons why it's a bad idea, and not being able to understand how anyone could
possibly like using the thing you dislike.

The latter position will almost certainly lead you down a path of ruin as you
try to make your living with technology.

If you worked for a book publisher who couldn't even conceive that people
might like ebooks, couldn't fathom why anyone would ever want to read a book
on a digital screen, for any reason, you'd quit (I hope).

Not someone who thinks paper books are superior because of the way they feel,
or that they don't have DRM, or that you can share them, lend them, resell
them, collect them. Those are valid reasons to prefer paper books.

But if you work in the book industry, and honestly can't understand why
anybody would ever want an ebook, you're not someone whose opinion about the
nature of the book industry I value.

As to who these people are, Dave Winer is a technologist who played a very
important roll in making RSS a thing (and he wants to make sure you remember
it...for all of eternity), and Robert Scoble is a technoloblogger (he writes
about a lot of services/apps from a user perspective) who never met a social
networking site/iPhone app/ that let him promote that he didn't like.

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pron
Hear, hear!
([http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/1...](http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/11/10/3970914.html))

