'Byte Credits (and Byte Penalties)' – Online Gateway to Social Equity?

'Byte Credits (and Byte Penalties)' – Online Gateway to Social Equity?


Ganga Prasad G. Rao
http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar


With so many email solicitations, pop-up windows for shopping and online survey invitations, it is questionable whether one ever gets to the important stuff on the internet beyond glamor girls, cine awards and afternoon gossip-metamorphosed to late-evening internet chats. You know, stuff like emerging technology, social policy initiatives and documents, financial meltdown, global warming, reports from riot commissions, hygiene and nutrition, advances in medicine, groundbreaking scientific discoveries, theses, court opinions, ... the list is endless. The sad answer, for most of us internet addicts, is No! Despite immediate access, we are limited in what we surf and learn on the world-wide web. In a manner, we are deluged by the inane on the net, and left with little time for the sublime.

Years back, I realized those seeking our participation in surveys on the net had value for our opinions – what economists call 'willingness to pay'. Your response provides valuable information which, with the responses of many others, provides the basis for survey sponsors to formulate plans, designs and strategies, or compile reports and recommendations. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find certain surveys offering a gift or various other prizes – certain, or, by lottery. As alluded above, there is another wide body of internet content for which we individuals have little time for, but which would be socially most useful if we perused it. If we are paid or lured to browse certain content of private or commercial interest, shouldn't the same apply to content of social interest? How then do we achieve this system of incentives (and disincentives)?

I am no freeware/shareware/'open' software provider who keeps afloat with his ingenious ways of earning money for software downloaded free (by the way, how do they survive?). But, if it is our intention to promote certain socially informative and useful content, the Government, as the representative of the people, could set aside a fund and apply it to subsidize socially productive content (rather than implicitly subsidize all content indiscriminately as is perhaps the case today)? With a 'content-based' subsidy we could 'code' internet pages with 'byte credits' for socially beneficial content and 'byte penalties' for 'other content', that the ISP processes in a straightforward way. If every pop-up ad that you 'accept' on your monitor (and 'acknowledge' by returning a 'cookie' back) earns you 'byte credits' on your ISP bill, so would socially beneficial web content - whether RTI forms, health and hygiene information, policy documents or school/library material (with a limit on a monthly basis to exclude misuse). In fact, we could boost public governance by even soliciting surveys broadly from the public concerning national issues on a regular basis.

Sure, it is not as easy as I claim it is. The byte credits would, akin to the prices of goods and services, vary with content and time, and the reputation of the content supplier/host. Certain sites that claim to update information regularly would, justifiably, claim a higher 'byte rate' than those others who follow a 'post and forget' policy. In the case of surveys, 'byte credits' could be coded to vary with the number of pages/questions, and the time spent on it. Over time, the system of 'byte credits' and 'byte penalties' would spawn both the supply of and demand for socially useful content. Search engines would sort search results by various criteria including 'byte credits/penalties', and surfers could use the criterion to selectively choose and view content. True, merely downloading a web page or document in itself does little to add to intelligence or social equity, but it is a start nonetheless**. And, parents who almost risk a stroke on looking up the broadband bill will heave a sigh of relief if their children learn a thing or two under this 'intelligent web world' (IWW).

Now that would be something to look forward to. Right?


** To dissuade downloading large documents merely for credits, and to ensure the document is read in its entirety, large downloads may be split in many parts and credit only offered with the last part contingent on the downloading of all preceding parts.