Networks

Just a quick post on network models. I have already made my feelings clear on ‘social networking’ in a previous post, but I didn’t talk about networks as a whole. There are three main types of networks, demonstrated by the diagram below.

Centralised networks work by many users having access to one main resource, i.e. most mass media. There are millions of people watching one TV program, from one source, for example, but the problem with this is that if you take that source away, everyone is affected, and the network stops.

On the other end of the spectrum there are distributed networks, where everything is linked independently from each other, the Internet was designed in part to provide a communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers would direct traffic around the network via alternate routes.

This is really the ideal, with free passage of knowledge and resources, with no risk of the network collapsing when a few of these connections are broken. However, even though I feel that if we achieved this model in most areas of life things would be better for everyone, it would also destabilize both power and wealth, the two things people strive to achieve, and therefore our very human nature stops this from becoming a reality.

If we go back to the TV example Sky would never let the BBC show a brand new series of 24 at the same time as them, even though this would allow more people to view it, as this draw of the ‘latest and greatest’ is the USP (unique selling point) of that channel, and how they make money from their subscribers.