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A certain news story, one to which I return time and again for Aesop-caliber insight into the human condition, recounted the tragic tale of rats in Central Park feeding on discarded crack vials, resulting in a noticeable biodiversification of the park's population of addicts. More fascinating than the rats' unwitting appropriation of human vice, though, was the addendum that the rats' newfound addiction had trickled down to the fleas, as their steady diet of once-nourishing rat blood became increasingly tainted by the drug.
So what if I unearthed this sorry saga of crackhead vermin in the Weekly World News? It provides a useful counterpoint to the routine business dynamic of the Web, where the process often tends to work in reverse. The ubiquitous hotlist evolves into Yahoo, homepages are reduced to nodes in the HotBot database, and Usenet becomes the dynamic feed for DejaNews. The host that feeds on its parasites tends to be a happy host, and if the search sites are the Net's fattest vehicles of profit, it's not surprising that they're busily feeding on the online book-vendor industry.
The "Earth's Biggest Bookstore," Amazon.com, started this latest trend with its Associates Program, wherein interested Web publishers could become sales affiliates, earning 15 percent of sale price upon referral. Next thing you know, Amazon and Barnes & Noble have cut deals with aol.com, Lycos, Yahoo, and Excite, presumably on far more lucrative terms. Soon, it will be difficult to perform a simple search for pipe-bomb blueprints without a pitch for The Poor Man's James Bond parking itself on your screen like a fertilizer-crammed bookmobile.
There's nothing wrong with the successful digital markets aggregating toward the top of the digital food chain, unless the thought of their first stop online being cluttered by book and CD promos, stock tickers, sports scores, newswires, and laundry-detergent coupons frustrates people into closing their browsers rather than opening their wallets. After all, we're the ones who ultimately need to swallow the little white pebbles. Are you ready to open wide?
