Parts Two and Three

Part Two

Jason Lainer continues to ramble about how the internet is a horrid distortion of how he envisioned it 25 years ago. He still has many thoughts compiled together to form what he likes to call "chapters". Despite the difficultly of following Lainer's arguments, there were a few points that he made in part two that I found interesting. The first was his avid dislike of advertising on the internet. He says that back when the internet was still new, advertising was viewed as the most evil of crimes. Now, it is commonplace, and an integral part of the way that the internet works. If found this interesting because I don't understand why he (or any other internet pioneers) would think that it is a bad thing. Yes, it may skew the content on the webpage, but overall it funds the creators of the page, fueling continued work and improvements to attract more page viewers.

The second (and more interesting) point to me was his analysis of file-sharing. While I had shared some of the same thoughts as him in the past, they have never been articulated so well. In particular, I had never contemplated the impact it would have on record companies in such depth. The reason record companies were able to make money was because they controlled the amount of music available to the public. If you wanted music, you had to get it from them. Now, with the advent of file sharing, it is easy to make music and spread it, therefore flooding the market with music. While this impacts the record companies, it also impacts musicians who want to "make it big". From what Lainer said, and from my own personal thoughts on the matter, I believe it is increasingly difficult for unsigned bands to get a contract and achieve mainstream popularity. Record companies see that it is no longer profitable to invest heavily in new, fresh bands without a large fan base. Instead, they are focusing on the few assets they have left. This leaves very talented musicians out in the cold, with little hopes of ever making money off of their art.

I believe that the music industry is due for a massive overhaul in the coming years. Lainer agrees, although I have NO idea what he is talking about with his "Songles". I guess we will see what happens.

Part Three

I had one main problem with this section, and that was Lainer assumed that people believe mashups, funny youtube videos, and TV shows spliced with popular songs to be culturally relevant pieces of art. While yes, these things are funny and entertaining to a certain extent, anyone above the age of 14 wouldn't ever think to call it artwork (the only exception being extremely good and tasteful mashup artists). Youtube videos are certainly not art, unless they breach the threshold of artistic expression into short films.

I feel as if Lainer believes the mass population of the United States is, as a whole, very unintelligent and lacking culture. It is because of this that I believe some of his assertions to be a bit off.