I was going to title this one "I've Won Again," but I already used that, last October. Still, it seems that once again I've won the Irish Lottery Programme online sweepstakes. My email was chosen at random. This year I've won three million Euros. Last time it was only two and a half million dollars! At this rate I'm going to be a very rich man.
My winning coincided with news that Google is trying to suppress the use of the verb "googled," as in "I googled my boyfriend to see if he has a website." So what does that have to do with winning the Irish Lottery Online Sweepstakes? It's this obsession with online greed.
Okay, so everyone wants to be rich. I accept that. I put my money in mutual funds that are probably invested in everything from Exxon to Wal-Mart. I depend on millions of hapless consumers to buy products I would never waste my own money on to build my portfolio so I can retire. I accept such contradictions and moral ambiguities. But this obsession with getting rich on the Internet has me baffled.
Now here it comes, another "I can remember back when I first discovered the Internet" story. I had just got my first modem, shortly after getting a new computer. It was 1993, and some of my friends were talking about "going online." I tried various internet providers, including both CompuServe and America Online, but finally settled on Netcom. I liked the cleanness of Netcom's shell accounts, and I was attracted by the good-natured geekiness of the Netcom regulars. I lurked on many Netcom Usenet groups, and learned a lot about computers and computing. (I still maintain my website by logging in on a shell account writing everything with a plain text editor.)
Ah, such innocence. We actually believed that the Internet belonged to the people, and that it should not succumb to commerce. Of course, within months of joining Netcom, the first major spamming incident occurred when someone tried to advertise their business. It was like the snake in the garden. No one knew it then, but a new industry had been born, soon to be followed by pop-up advertising, commercial spyware, and all the rest, including anti-virus suites, spam blockers, and firewalls. And even with all of these defenses, the majority of all email is spam.
So, you say, what do I expect? It's human nature. And I agree. But what I don't understand is why this would work. I can't recall ever responding to spam email or pop-up advertisements, but someone must be responding, or these guys wouldn't be so persistent. Even Google, a pretty good search engine, depends on advertisers to make it a hugely successful Internet company. And AOL, once a major Internet provider, has decided to give away its services in the hope of generating revenue from advertising. (Note to Google: keep an eye on the fate of AOL.) Nor are they alone. Just about every blog or website you go to these days is filled with ads begging you to click on them and maybe also win something free. It's worse than TV. At least there are a few channels without commercials.
The Internet is the medicine show of the 21st century. My mother recently attended a seminar on making money online. Of course, she just went to get the free dinner on her way to visiting my brother. For her it was an entertaining evening laughing at some super-animated salesman trying to convince a woman in her 80s to buy his sales kit and learn all the secrets of Internet commerce. But I'm sure he made some sales that night. It's like any other con or pyramid scheme. Someone will buy this stuff and the guy selling the snake oil always makes a profit.
But I still don't get it. I mean, after a while won't everyone catch on that these offers are bogus? How do I keep winning these sweepstakes without ever entering? How genuine can these stock tips be when they fill up my inbox (and everyone else's) from so many hundreds of fake addresses? How many Nigerians with millions to give away can there be? And who clicks on those ads when they google something?
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