Research Update
Sorry for the radio silence. My wife and I took a vacation to Disney (my first time!), so I haven't had a whole lot of time to do research and write. I have had a lot of time to think, however, and I've decided to research colonialism and see if there are any comparisons between colonization of the “New World” and the colonization of the internet. I've spent some time narrowing it down and have a thesis to work with.
Thesis
The dotcom boom of the late nineties and early two thousands can be compared to the colonization of the “New World”, in that many new entities competed for space in the new “vacant” frontier. In the end, large conglomerates got big and won out. Google, Facebook/Twitter and Amazon have “conquered” the internet, and now exercise vast amounts of influence over its inhabitants. This project seeks to understand the motivations behind colonialism in the hope of learning from the past in order to inform the future.
Research Questions
- What motivated European nations to colonize the “New World”?
- What motivated dotcom companies to colonize the internet?
- What are the pros and cons to a centralized system?
- In the colonial period?
- In the internet age?
- What can be done to prevent monopoly?
Step One
I feel that the questions after motivations are a bit vague, so my first goal will be to figure out the motivations behind the colonization of the “New World” and the colonization of the internet respectively.
Thanks for Reading!
This was just a quick update. If you have some thoughts you can follow me on Mastodon or Twitter. Mastodon is preferred because of the higher character limit and I check it more often.
I am off to the library to find some sources.