Part of the internet culture of today entails the free movement of knowledge, but how is free knowledge profitable? The distribution of products and services has historically been in control of businesses and companies. However, some factions of internet culture have found ways of pirating mainstream products or developing their own and redistributing them for free. Does a cyber society based on sharing challenge today’s spiraling economy?
A quick lesson in anthropology: Capitalism is based on negative reciprocity, the idea that both parties are aiming to come out “on top” in a trade transaction at the expense of the other. This usually exists in larger societies with market economies, where there is a less personal relationship between the two parties and the interest of one party in the other is “strictly business.” Capitalist culture is driven by the desire to “get ahead,” an ideal which is made possible by cut throat competition and independence.
However, if you feel the internet may be creating a “small world,” you may be right. When Marshall McLuhan coined the term “Global Village,” he was referring to the role that modern technology played in creating close knit communities, much like the internet is beginning to do, and in some cases has already done. In smaller communities, negative reciprocity cannot exist. Relationships are multifaceted and communities are interdependent. Thus, general reciprocity is favored, in which exact time, amount, and form of exchange are flexible and informal. Money is not the only currency in cyberspace. The internet, while competitive, is a cooperative community.
While many share information and products freely on the internet, uploading comes with the social obligation that uploaders also contribute to the pool of resources. In file sharing communities such as Napster or Kazaa, users who enabled the share option were considered more reputable. Likewise, for many that produce videos themselves to share on YouTube, comments are valued based on the activity of that member. If a negative comment is posted by a user that has not produced videos of their own, it is less valued than a comment by a “Tuber” that has a collection of their own videos. In fact, many sites make it possible for visitors to observe the level of interactivity of community members by counting videos watched, blogs posted, or friends in a network, which adds to the value of ones “cyber-cred.”
The societies which manage exchange on the basis of general reciprocity meet their needs because of social expectations. The larger the society, the greater the need for an infrastructure to augment or replace social expectations, and the greater the disconnect between user and producer. If you could make a timeline of exchange patterns, It would begin with small egalitarian communities practicing general reciprocity. If we projected this model into 2030, would the pattern reflect its beginnings? The practice of general reciprocity is far from outdated, and governs the exchange of many societies, is the internet community one of them?
This model of general reciprocity based on social obligation works only for small groups, and we are in the interesting situation of having a large scale society interacting on a medium which produces small scale societal values. The internet creates intimacy not found in capitalist economies. So then, how is our society going to negotiate this discrepancy of values?
