My point about the topology of the web was that by being a read-write, decentralized system, it resists the kind of concentration of power you see in the broadcast media. This is similar to (person-to-person) speech, in that access is universal, and group interaction is easy. This fundamentally disrupts attempts to replicate traditional media distribution models in the online space, and I think that’s probably a good thing.

Similarly, my point on audience was that as access to the web becomes universal and standards become more open, distribution is not limited to people with a certain type of playback device or application. I think the recorded music industry is a fair example of this: we’ve had wax cylinders, 78s, 45s, 33 1/3s, 8-track tape, cassettes, CDs, DATs, Minidisc, DVD-A, SACD, MP3, AAC, ATRAC3, WMA, and many others. While I’m much too young to remember the technical debate over the optimum angular velocity for a shellac platter, there has been significant technical debate over which digital format offers the best compromises between quality and file size, and which latest-generation optical format offers the best quality for those of us with electrostatic headphones capable of -3dB at 45kHz…

However, all of these recent debates have missed the point entirely–people don’t _listen_ to (recorded) music any more, they use it as a soundtrack to whatever else they happen to be doing concurrently, and that use case requires near-universal access to their collections. At the moment, that’s what the iPod is for, but soon enough we’ll just be streaming it from the artist’s site via our broadband-equipped phones, or from web-based playlists set up by our friends, or from some kind of RSS-like aggregation service that gives us latest stuff from all the bands we’re subscribed to. And it doesn’t matter if the record companies can’t make money off it, because somebody else will, and the world will keep turning…

I do question the notion of the web mapping out, as you say, “the same fundamental topologies of power”. The changes we’re seeing in traditional media businesses are being brought about because that power structure has been disrupted. I think we’re certainly seeing attempts at regaining control, but that is happening through litigation and acquisition rather than innovation on the part of the media companies.

In terms of audience, would it not be better to say it is limited ONLY by who is interested as opposed to who owns the player for your specific format? That in itself is key to disrupting the way a lot of these companies operate, and as we move away from notions of regions and more towards global markets, the ways fans of a particular product or brand can interact with it only get more interesting.

As a complete aside, I can remember calling up Channel 7 perhaps ten or more years ago to complain that they hadn’t aired the full first season of friends; that’s something my kids are never going to need to worry about.

Of course it’s inevitable that something as mundane as the delivery mechanism should command such a disproportionate mindshare, given the technology-driven medium fetishism of the last 150 years, but I think that’s about to change: it seems to me that the exciting thing about the Web–and version 2.0 is nothing more than CERN’s circa-1990 World Wide Web for the HTML-illiterate masses, with rounded edges and animated JavaScript drop shadows–is precisely that it is _not_ just another shiny medium for us to enjoy (…and pay for).

The key here is that the Web exhibits the same fundamental topologies of power and control as speech, only orders of magnitude larger (and, in the temporal sense, somewhat less fuzzy). Communication is inherently bi-directional and essentially instant, while audience is limited more by who cares enough about you to listen than by, say, the North American market penetration of HD-DVD playback systems within the B demographic, or the uptake of PlaysForSure DRM-compatible devices in the EU.

There will be a few more new tricks for all of us to learn, but I think ultimately the result of the Web’s expansion into everyday life will be that the medium becomes ubiquitous, therefore uninteresting, therefore invisible, and finally we’ll get back to creating and consuming content, not media.