This is a very refreshing short piece by David Weinberger on why open spectrum matters and how it can help usher in a new wave of connectedness beyond the ASCII-internet that we have today. A few choice paragraphs here on "social topologies" implied by a network's structure:
"Broadcast" isn't simply an industry. It is a network topology, an economic model, and a social structure with direct consequences for the political process as well. As a network topology, broadcast assumes that the messages are sent one to many. As an economic model, it assumes the "channel" is an expense and revenues come from the content that is broadcast (via subscription or advertising). As a social structure, broadcast assumes that the ability to communicate is unequally – and unfairly – distributed.
The result of these assumptions is a population that by and large is presumed to be sitting quietly, facing forward, consuming content developed by commercial interests. The effects of having become a "Broadcast Nation" are profound. Our freedom is defined by the channel changer nearby. We expect power to be concentrated in the hands of those who have access to media. We expect politicians to be talking at us more than listening to us. We expect consumer goods to be "broadcast" the way messages are: identical goods flowing from a single source. We even experience The Famous as a special class of person whose lives are played out over the broadcast network.
We can get a taste of the effect of breaking free of the broadcast metaphor by looking at what the Internet is doing. The Net enables people to connect with one another, circumventing the broadcast chokepoints and the organizational chart formalities. We are at the beginning of a generational phase of innovation not only in technology but in ways we human beings are organizing ourselves. We're inventing new types of groups, new ways of writing, new rhythms of social intercourse.
