A good post, Mazer!
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Originally Posted by Mazer
P2P as a social concept has been around since the Internet was born and file sharing is simply the most recently added feature. Open Source software engineering is also an old idea but has picked up a lot of momentum. As a younger generation has been initiated into this already well established social sphere they've bestowed it with mass appeal, making it more accessible to everybody else. Filesharing and Open Source aren't new threats to old industries, they are incrimental improvements on a concept that has been brewing for decades.
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Yep, this is the real thing that is going on behind all the daily p2p dramas. The technical integration of the world (into a tightly wrapped high-speed communication network) is proceeding hand in hand with the social integration of the humanity (into a global network of online social contacts and relations). In a sense this social integration process is
the mass movement of all times - as it will eventually involve most of world population and result in a whole new world order in terms of social bonding, communication, co-presence and co-operation.
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While the idea of non-market, non-corporate production is not new — science has traditionally worked this way — large-scale, decentralized, sustained open production by diverse groups of peers on a wide variety of focused projects is a new phenomenon that has been enabled and encouraged by the confluence of computers, networking, and the information economy.
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A new phenomenon, and a hugely potential one.
P2P filesharing is just one of many possible peer 'production' activities but as a spearhead application it has already demonstrated how easy and cheap it is to establish and run a global non-market and non-corporate information storage and distribution system that in many respects works much better than the pre-existing commercial alternatives. There's no problem finding enough willing peers to make the system functional, and the donated technical resources are enough to do a good job.
Skype is proving the same point in Internet telephony. Peer power gets the job done just as well as the traditional telcos with their expensive staff and facilities. Other similar revolutionary breakthroughs are certainly ahead.
- tg
