The Internet is turning into just another broadcast medium – a limited number of channels controlled by big companies, designed to maximize revenues to copyright holders and megacorporations. And we’re facilitating the takeover.
A thought-provoking and disturbing study shows that the Internet is shrinking, collapsing in on itself. Here’s some statistics:
- More than half of all time spent online centers around the web sites run by four companies – AOL Time Warner, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Napster. (The death of Napster presumably reduces the number to three in the last few weeks.)
- More than a third of all time online is spent on AOL Time Warner web sites.
- Sixty percent of all US time spent online was spent at just 14 web sites – down from 110, two years earlier.
- Almost one third of online adults visit ten or fewer web sites a month.
Get out there and surf! Find the obscure, revel in the rich resources that are outside the boundaries of the corporate giants!
