Uninstalled Offers an Important Insight

On January 31, 2009 there was an interesting global Google meltdown.

Michael O’Connor Clarke unpacks and elaborates on his blog.

Yes, we should worry less about what if and when Google fails.  And yes, we should worry more (or at least the Powers That Be should 😉 about "what might happen if the Net ever reaches the point of working too well".

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The Machine Stops (again) #googmayharm

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Forster’s Machine has grown over time to become so big and complex that no one living person or group is able to fully grok the complex workings of the thing to start fixing it.

It would be wrong to over-dramatise this morning’s very brief Google outage as anything remotely as catastrophic, of course. But for about 20 entertaining minutes there, it seemed like people worldwide had a tiny glimpse into the fearful abyss of a world without Google (and yes, my tongue’s more than a little way into my cheek).

Being deprived of our groupmind, even for such a short time, caused an extraordinary flood of messages on Twitter. The search for Twitter hashtag #googmayharm reached 100 pages of posts (about 1500 individual tweets) in under an hour and fast overtook the Super Bowl as the hottest rising story.

“As technology advances, our relative understanding decreases, and our helplessness and confusion increases,” as that Weinberger bloke once said.

Indeed. The curious thing for me is that I’m left more reassured than worried about all this.

It is precisely the inherent, defining brokenness of the Web that makes it so valuable and so useful.

When one key part (in this case Google) completely fails – however briefly – we may have a moment of panic, but we quickly learn to route around the damage. There are lots of other search engines out there still; many alternative ways to complete the synaptic connections we’ve grown accustomed to outsourcing to the great gods of Google.

We should worry less, perhaps, about what happens when a dominant provider such as Google fails, and more about what might happen if the Net ever reaches the point of working too well.

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