I Am Not A Consumer!

I loathe the word "consumer". It turns the entire purchasing public into a gigantic organism that does nothing but eat and eat and eat. That's how the corporations see us: as a gigantic mouth into which any crap they produce is to be shoveled. We are not customers because customers must be respected, listened to, and accomodated. Consumers need only be fed.

I like peering apps like Gnutella and Freenet because they turn us all into customers of each others' content. We can aggregate into real communities of individuals, where each person has a face and a name, rather than some abstract "profile".

I experience the 'net. I think about it. I mull it over. I respond to it. It's both a destination and a diversion. The 'net is more than the web, more than codecs, formats, and graphics. The 'net is a meeting of minds, a playground, an arena, a concert hall and a theater of the absurd.

It is not a trough where pigs go to eat.