Jinn of Quality and Risk

Over several centuries, the printing press was fought but not stopped by entrenched powers. The Internet is now creating additional space for freedom, helping to further challenge (and erode) existing power. Because the end of the game is freedom and variety, not control and uniformity. Wired: Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame tells the 15th-century saga of the pitiful yet courageous hunchbacked bell ringer Quasimodo. The story also tells of entrenched powers -- the church that viewed the printing press as a threat to social order. The book will destroy the edifice! declared the archdeacon in the novel. Many of today's leaders are still terrified at the prospect of unbridled public communications among the unwashed masses. Today, the bogeyman is different. Books are passé. The designated evil is the Internet.