Casting the Net

Nick Gillespie from the June 1998 issue

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Compounding the negative reaction to AOLers, explains Grossman, was the "instinctive resentment of any hint of commercializing the Internet...the perception was that AOL neither knew nor cared about net.traditions but was only interested in sticking a meter on a free resource and billing its users extortionately." As a subscriber since the early 1990s, I can corroborate the often shabby treatment leveled at AOL members for no apparent reason other than the @aol.com stuck at the end of an electronic address.

By the same token, such incidents are growing fewer and further between--a trend that underscores the way in which the Net is constantly changing, growing, and accommodating more and more people. It's worth pointing out that AOL itself is constantly changing, too: Despite its early emphasis on members-only discussion groups, proprietary content, and hourly rates, it has quickly responded to the development of the World Wide Web by giving its member Internet access, de-emphasizing its exclusive content and forums, and offering flat-rate usage plans. (Like the Net itself, AOL has not always negotiated such changes easily.)

Somewhat reluctantly, Grossman can appreciate that convenient, easy-access services such as AOL have helped give the masses access to the benefits of the Internet, even as that great migration inevitably redraws the shape of cyberspace in all sorts of good, bad, and neutral ways. In any case, her ambivalence toward AOL and commercial activity doesn't undercut her appreciation for how the Net is constantly developing in response to user needs and demands. In a chapter called "Networks of Trust," for instance, she discusses how electronic "middlemen" are arising to help facilitate and certify electronic commerce.

It may well be that in the years, decades, or even centuries to come, we--or our descendants--will gaze upon the ruins of the Internet (whatever form they might take) and wonder what all the excitement was about. With this in mind, the great virtue of net.wars is its recognition that cyberspace's utopian potential--its ability to enrich existing real communities while creating new, virtual ones--is directly tied to its ability to change, grow, and make itself useful to its inhabitants. In showing how that process works in both historical and cultural terms, Grossman has written an intriguing account of the Internet's partial fulfillment of its seemingly limitless promise.