just paraphrase

The “Code” by Lessig

Lessig uses different example and links to show how it is possible to exercise control over cyberspace. In his narration, he establishes a framework with four capital pillars and shows how each pillar constitutes to regulation.

Market

Lessig sees the market as the center of forces driven mostly by developers and merchants rather than users. In his wisdom, he shows how pricing structures affect the content of online platforms, how businesses treat failing forums and the increasing pricing of internet access. According to him, the market often acts as the receiving end of the major regulations mostly the combination of the other three forces. While there exists no law to dictate a particular charging effect, natural market forces bring about the control. Market regulation in this sense comes from the utility that other people place on cyberspace. In this information age, we are inching close to full automation. The internet is becoming an indispensable part of human life, and therefore all external forces play to influence the market.

Forces respond to the demand and usability of individual platforms while making others irrelevant. Pricing, therefore, is a hidden weapon. While developers create codes, merchants more so internet entrepreneurs place a price on services of the code making it either unavailable or restricted to certain people.

Norms

Society acts on norms. There exists no written criterion but what the community comes to accepts or reject becomes standard. The code exerts no impact on norms but is a victim of the norm. Take for example the collapsing Yahoo portal. During its hay days in the 90s, the code was the order of the day. Fast forward two decades later and the norms dictate, if not govern that Yahoo is obsolete. In actual terms, the Yahoo code may provide better services but blame it on norms that people no longer use yahoo but prefer Google. In Lessig's words, norms become regulations when a large population prefers to follow a certain line of thought without any rules directing them. The result is self-regulation that has a substantial effect on code use.

Law

The law is the bedrock for all other forces. Its advantage comes in the form of its direct and indirect influence on the market. As a rule, it can directly forbid or allow coding in a particular direction. Such restrictions have substantial impacts but often face opposition from users. For example, the government can institute a coding policy that allows it to gather information of online users. In as much as it will amount to the intrusion of privacy, the policy will affect the code use. Indirect law regulation harbors more influence on the code. Take for example the privacy policy in the phones industry. The government authorizes utmost privacy, but when there is the need for caution, it retrieves the information from the firms for own goals. Indirect legislation has a large influence on both norms and market.

Architecture

The building blocks of the codes set standards for use. Developers institute restrictions either for their benefits or those of the end users. For example, it is the common procedure to input passwords for highly sensitive platforms. Passwords are an architecture method by developers to restrict usage. On the other hand, it may be a regulation that adds more restriction to the use of codes. With the advent of technology, architectural barriers are the most common instruments that restrict code usage. At one end, users can decide to use coded language, on the other end, the admin can trace and store information while on another, it is possible to block some content. All these approaches point to the aspect of how design can adequately control the cyberspace.