Author(s)
Source
Maryland Law Review, Vol. 69, No. 4, pg. 910, 2010
Summary
This paper reviews Jonathan Zittrain's 2008 book, The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It
Policy Relevance
Determining how and when a new technology will tend to generate more innovation involves the consideration of several complex factors.
Main Points
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Jonathan Zittrain’s book The Future of the Internet offers a good description of the way that the openly accessible nature of the Internet has helped to generate innovation -- a feature he calls “generativity.”
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He uses the iPhone as an example of a “closed” technology that threatens generativity.
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The iPhone is actually very generative, but this supports Zittrain’s argument more than it undermines it, in underscoring the value of generativity.
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The iPad underscores the value of generativity even further.
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Sometimes, it can be hard to tell whether a technology will be generative or not.
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Sometimes, a more closed system can generate innovation as well as or better than an open one.
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Computers that come already assembled are less “open” that computers that consumers must build themselves out of disconnected parts; however the pre-assembled kind probably generates more innovation.
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Generativity is not the only value worth preserving on the Internet; there are other values as well, which sometimes conflict with generativity. One of these is security from viruses and spyware.
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Trying to make systems perfectly generative could be destructive to many systems that are “good enough.”
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In setting policy, we should consider generativity of the Internet or the system as a whole, not the individual parts.