In “The Internet as Anti-Television” Christian Sandvig talks about Lick’s (good ol’ Lick) vision of interactive television in which consumers are simultaneously producers, distributing/transmitting symphonies and community theater. Sandvig laments that Lick’s vision has been undermined because only companies that can afford CDNs can distribute on a large scale (235). He also observes that “the Internet was originally thought to promise widespread ‘demasification” or “disintermediation” — anyone could be a publisher or a broadcaster with these new systems,” again arguing that this version of the Internet has also failed: “The implications of the Internet’s distribution architecture are not yet clear, but they do not seem to fulfill these earlier versions and potentials” (236). I’m inclined to agree with David, though, who says, the conventional wisdom still holds that the content that users consume is driven by what users ultimately want. Contrary to Sandvig’s “corporate liberalism” that David and Courtney mention, I would argue that plenty of people are producing and distributing original content. Of course, what the wider audience sees is almost invariably mediated by YouTube (or somesuch), but I would suggest that that’s because the bulk of original content isn’t picked up by companies that can afford CDNs because the bulk of original content produced is, as anyone who’s seen PewDiePie can tell you, crap. Further, the masses are getting what they want, but they sure don’t want symphonies and community theater.

What’s frightening about Sandvig’s assessment of (and prediction for) current and future incarnations of the Internet is, of course, the neoliberalism that it inheres: “While there was a logic at work of meeting consumer demand and satisfying customer taste, there was also a sense that the Internet user could be taught what to want, and that wanting user-produced materials without commercials was not profitable” (239). However, as Noah points out, many people acquire content “via file-sharing sites over the internet, or hosted on some weird Russian website.