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The Internet rewards the charitable and punishes the greedy

Started by mathewi · 6 months ago

Nicholas “The Voice of Doom” Carr has another one of his periodic columns about how the Internet is ruining everything, and in it he manages to somehow yoke together the evils of GPS navigation systems (because they send people through small villages, apparently) and ... Continue reading »

2 comments

  • Nick's examples may tend to the elitist, but I think he makes a reasonable point. Some things are better for being shared. However, some things are quite legitimately spoiled by being overexposed.

    Look at Lonely Planet, and its semi-secret policy of never writing up the best places the writers find in case a mass influx of backpackers destroys them. There are bars I go to that are lovely precisely because they're relatively empty: I don't especially want to deny their benefits to anyone else, but at the same time I recognise that if everyone visited those bars then what I like about them would cease to exist.

    Sure, in one sense it's elitist for surfers to try and keep other people away from their beaches but there really does come a point at which there's so many people in the water it's essentially impossible to surf (just as there long ago came a point when it was essentially impossible to drive through any of our cities).
  • I would spend my time looking for new more interesting places to go, rather than gripeing about the people running over "my spot". Or better yet if you truly care about the area that others are drawn to, through some news medium, then do something about it.

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