What Is The Internet? A philisophical view

The internet is fun and big business. Everywhere where fun exists business gets big. Examples are the movie industry and the popular music industry. Another example is tourism.Companies try to earn money from things people like.Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook earn lots of money because people like to use a computer and to surf on the Internet.

Edited June 27, 2011 by iswa (see edit history)

things are not so simple.I like surfing on sites without ads. Google and microsoft earn no money from that.Microsoft got a little bit money from the Windows license of my personal PC, but would earn nothing if my PC were a Linux one.

People spend to much time on the Internet by clicking the mouse click click clickThose Facebook games all with Ville make people do nothing, but click, that's why internet is bad I've rather read a book or something. :lol:But it's really good for information, true and false information.

I've rather read a book or something.

Currently it's possible to read a book while listening to some music, or reading a book while watching the TV.Do you think that it could be possible to read a book while clicking in a Facebook game?

Internet has become an alternate universe with instant gratifications. It plays a major role in today’s highly developed business era. Internet has enabled us to have everything in to our fingertips.

Internet reflects real world while extends our ability.Although people can cover their identity when visiting internet, but their personality, belief and attitude... are not changed. Some people behave differently on internet, but it's still the same person, just an extention of him/her. It's just like this person behave differently when nobody know who he/she is.With the help of new technology, many of us have moved a great part of our real life stuffs onto internet, So, internet not only reflects but also extends our life experience to a space which is not in the same dimention of our real life.Although internet reflects real life, but not in full-- we can't eat or drink on internet. When think of this fact, we fall on ground-- internet is just one of our tools, not really another life Just another tool? Maybe, maybe not. Are you still who you are if without internet? I doubt what I could have been if without internet. I make a living on interent; I manage most of my stuffs, that do not need to be physicaly exist, on the interent; I make friends on internet; I have fun on internet; .... If without all the activities, who am I? What would I be doing right now without internet-- I don't know, anything is possible, who knows what the other forms of life could be.

I reckon sites like facebook will calm down a bit in the next 10 years. I remember when I first started using the internet back in the 90's, I was instantly hooked on a website named The Gamers Inn. It was a simple chat room with an active role playing community. There was no profit to be made from it but I remember how excited I was about it and other sites and would spend countless nights online click click clicking. Anyone remember shockwave? That was all the rage before flash games and they became very popular very fast which prompted the introduction of advertising on the sites that hosted shockwave.Anyway my point is, to the rest of the world they are only just starting to get online more than back in the 90's (back then it was only geeks and nerds who really knew how to use the internet). These internet newbies remind me of myself when I was a kid and had discovered the internet. Once I had a good 5-10 year dose of being online my addiction finally subsided and I was able to properly limit my exposure to mindless click click clicking. I think in the next 10 years people will soon calm down online and the business opportunities will also begin to die off.The main exploitation online today is companies that offer someone payment in exchange for doing all the work of putting their advertisements out there. All these companies need to do is gather the advertisements then offer the masses a fraction of the profits for slapping these ads all over the web. It's an ingenious idea, but has superseeded the older advertising practices online of a single fee for a months advertising rights. At least the old way you could make some money, these new methods seem attract a lot more people with the promise of "easy" money and as a result the profits become thinner and thinner as they are more spread out. It has gotten to a point where you are doing all the work for these advertisers and earning practically nothing from it. You could put in a weeks work of 9am-5pm and the return would only be $10 if you were lucky. Once the attraction of the internet has started to subside amongst the general population though then I can see these practices becoming fewer and fewer, returning to a fairer distribution of advertising profits.