Many-to-many radio?

Tom McCarthy being interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on Writers and Company about his new novel C :

When I did my research into emergent radio I was astonished to find, almost word for word, anticipations of the type of debates that were going on around the Internet from the '90s to now. You get wireless activists going "we don't want to be regulated, we don't want a central broadacster, it should remain many-to-many".

Surprising to me. Anyway, I'm off to buy Remainder or C, both of which sound entertaining.

Comments

[RAD]

The radio activists from yesteryear had a different goal no? They wanted radio spectrum to remain public and open like a community park. Internet activists take issue with 1) corporations that impose unfair restrictions (equivalent to a private road toll operator only allowing access for Ford automobiles) and 2) government taxes and regulation that have nothing to do with allocating scarce public goods.

[tomslee]

I didn't even know "radio activists" existed, so I'm happy to believe what you say.