About the Digital Public Library Proposal

If you are interested in working on making a better public communication system and for questions or comments please contact Breezy Brian Gregg
bzgregg@telusplanet.net

Let’s stop using the commercial media systems. Instead, lets support having Public Libraries bring us all the media we want.

Imagine a place online where you could experience all the digital content you want,
▪ free of charge
▪ free of commercials
▪ free from being watched and tracked

Let’s call this place The Digital Public Library (a not-for-profit service)

Presently, no not-for-profit digital communications service exists.

It would be so civilized and progressive to have not-for-profit Digital Public Library Service that provides these things for everyone,
• search engine services
• social media services
• access to all private libraries of digital content (including text books)
• a payment system to pay copyright owners based on public use

Traditional Public Libraries provide communications services
• for free
• without exposing the patrons of the Public Library to advertising
• without surveilling the patrons.

The Digital Public Library Proposal argues that the not-for-profit model is right and the for-profit model is wrong for providing digital communications services.

Why is the for-profit model the wrong model?
1.) It prevents us from having real democracy
2.) It inflates the cost of living

A more democratic and safer way to provide communication services

Democracy is not safe when rich people can interrupt our communications to expose us to their political and commercial pitches. There are examples where communication service businesses have been exploited to interfere with democratic elections. For example the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Consequently there is a real appetite to regulate and to police advertising, especially political advertising.

The way commercial communications service businesses prevent us from having real democracy is that they, on top of providing audiences with content they want, which I think is great, they provide only rich people with the opportunity to buy advertising. Rich people can therefore have a dominating voice in shaping the conversations that determine what is politically possible. For democracy to work people have to have an equal opportunity to be listened to. That is not the case when richer people can buy more air time in audiences’ attention space.

Strict regulation and policing is not the answer

To some degree we all have an internal cop that wants to control bad behaviour we see outside ourselves. I have that feeling too, but question that we can afford to pay for regulation and armies of internet police. I question that this could lead to anything but an expensive cumbersome bureaucracy where more layers of corruption and influence could arise. This only brings more of a safety risk for democracy. Who gets to be the judge of what is allowed? Banning or abolishing advertising is the beginning of a slippery slope. We don’t need to ban it.

The beauty of transitioning to a not-for-profit communications service is that it is a way to severely limit our exposure to advertising without actually banning it. One of the great things about having a not-for-profit digital communications service is that because it would not provide any opportunity to buy advertising, there would be no need to face the expensive and messy task of of regulating and policing advertising.

 

Communications services that make living more affordable

Relying on businesses for our communications services means rich people can interrupt our communications to expose us to their political and commercial pitches. Not only do we use traditional media businesses like newspapers and television networks, we now use businesses that provide communications digitally. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Netflix, and many more. They are all businesses making profits for ownership shareholders. They inflate our cost of living.

The way commercial communications service businesses inflate our cost of living is this. People using the services are persistently exposed to advertising pitches. This creates artificial demand. That means it makes people want things they would not naturally be wanting without exposure to advertising. The result is that in the market, demand goes up.

What else goes up when demand goes up? … Prices … thats right when demand goes up prices go up. Prices become unnaturally inflated and we pay far more for everything we purchase and we purchase more than we normally would. This is nice for the firms that advertise because they get to make extra profits at consumers expense without really providing anything extra.

Funding communications services with income taxes or general sales taxes is more efficient than extracting funds from consumers by exposing them to advertising. The latter results in consumers paying what amounts to a hidden tax that goes to pay huge profits to businesses that provide something that could be mostly automated.

Audience Capture

A Digital Public Library should be able to capture all the audiences that are now captured by businesses. This is because in general although the audiences like the digital content they can now access through commercial communications services, they do not, in general, like to be spied on or advertised to.

 

Digital Public Library Project Agenda

Strategic Plan to make a not-for-profit communications service
• Form a founding board and register as a non-profit.
• Do not ask individuals for donations. Ask CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority), Unions, Churches and other not-for profit organizations to chip in to fund the first stage.

The first stage will be to educate voters on how we can protect our democracy from the influence of big money in politics, by having a not-for-profit communications service and how we can make life more affordable by having a not-for-profit communications service. – less political power for the few and more economical for the many

Although we will not be asking individuals for money, we are asking people to volunteer their time doing the mental labor to understand a new way of looking at how communications services can be provided. In the end the hope is to lobby government to pass legislation that would fully fund a not-for-profit communications service.

You are encouraged to do two things:

1.) Abstain when ever you can. Which means, practice avoiding using commercial communications services.
When ever you can avoid using Commercial Newspapers, Commercial T.V., Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Instagram. In general avoid using anything that exposes you to advertising or that requires you to pay a fee.

2.) Speak up about the need for our governments to fund a not-for-profit communications service so we can protect our democracy from the influence of big money in politics and at the same time make living more affordable.