Thank you NJDG for pointing out my lapse into the mythology of an etherial Internet. We can never forget that the Internet is a series of tubes that require huge amounts of capital and largely unseen infrastructure. Indeed, the rising use of high-bandwidth streaming video and web apps is responsible for a serious evolution in electricity use. Behind every Google search, YouTube video, and Blogger post is a network of data centers that require the same amount of energy as a small city and the coolant systems akin to those of a nuclear power plant. The global nature of the Internet allows western users to enjoy the results of this processing power without having to build new coal-fired power plants in their own backyards.
Google's top-secret data center on the Columbia River
Moreover, utopian claims about the democratic and intellectual potential of the Internet frequently gloss over the capital interests invested in our favorite sites and causes (Online organizing on Facebook, brought to you by CIA-backed venture capital, social-networking pioneers behind Obama’s $750m online fundraising juggernaut). This is why we need to keep theorizing the relationships between speech, politics and capital on the Internet.
BUT
My last post was talking about blogging from the perspective of a writer seeking to published his thoughts, along the lines of Andrew Sullivan’s piece. Thus, I was glossing over these issues of capital because for the aspiring (or successful) writer, the issue is about getting people to read your ideas. From this perspective, free web publishing tools (like wordpress) do free writers from some of their direct dependence on capital as it relates to the content of their thoughts. For example, I highly doubt that this would reach anyone outside of the SciLi bathrooms without the help of those tubes.