As we all know, the internet is a system of tubes, and as some of us, or at least I, the “host” of this “blog”, know, it’s clogged. With virtual acres of top-quality shit. So clogged, it’s not even worth looking at some days. And I’m here to tell ya, it’s not clogged by rants, by cults, by freaks, by content farms, by videos so unwatched they may not have been made, by “blogs”, by “posts”, by “comments”. All that fell away years ago; today, it’s clogged by “innovation”.
Let’s quickly recap, U Inc. style, the three Actual Innovations That Count in the entire massive 25-ish year history of the tubes, shall we:
- The tubes
The end. You might note the absence of the polished turd Facebook and predecessors–not from the clogging, mind you, just from the mattering–and the like absence of “mobile” and “social” and “tablets” and “apps” and “associated bullshit”. You might not; I care not. I will scream it until I die–which may be soon, at the rate of apoplexy this nonsense inspires–but whatever of the rest hasn’t failed to matter, will fail to matter soon.
So what, argue. Call me crazy, you have no idea. Play your fucking games on your fucking mobile device, and call it important. (Seriously, is anyone else upset about the iPhone/Harry Potter demographic similarities? Think it over.) Let’s just talk about it in real, real simple terms, which is how evolution looks after the fact, regardless of the bullshit angst that living through it presents as truth. The internet is the first platform, the search engine is its map, the word-of-mouth machine is the next platform. The first platform was simple, open, undefined, easily handled by a solid map that could simultaneously sell you simple, stupid print/classified ads to “pay for itself”, or whatever excuse we’re using as a definition of value this week. The second platform is messy, open, less defined, worse run, unmasterable, has no discernible value, is just getting started despite being several years old, and has thus far proven unmappable. It is much harder to explain than the first, and to people who don’t “get it”, it is worthless. This is not some paean to “early adopters”, strutting pricks that they are, but to the failure to comprehend, in the slightest, where we are going, which is along some unknown path of sentient evolution. Each step being more complex, not less.
Against which there are nine jillion more startups than there were the first time that approach failed massively, when it was just a simple platform, all claiming to Have the Answer You Must “Use”. Like any student in your average philosophy for non-majors class, they’re lousy at discussion, but fantastic as fodder. They exist merely as unrealized energy generated by the next reactor, and while they wait to burn, they and their hangers-on assault us in constant real/virtual/geo-local/mobile/social/buzzword/VC time with their promise of being that reactor. A scratch-off promise, which will reveal the dull brown fact of their just lying there like excrement between us and the world we might have lived in had we come along after someone shoveled them up and fed them to the gaping maw around the corner.
Mr. Unexpectedly 