One version of the history of cyberculture, albeit a simple and condensed version, tells the story of an independent media space for free cultural experimentation that was co-opted by people looking for quick and easy profits during the dot-com oom.  Individual innovation and creative drive clearly shaped cyberculture and the World Wide Web since the earliest hacks and first personal homepages.  the commercialization of cyberspace, however, involved a shift in cultural values, not just the increasing corporate control of the production of Internet content.  the artistic, creative and culturally rebellious pioneers of Silicon Alley considered the financial investments and their concomitant corporate values “the end of the Web as we know it.”  How then did they accept the shift toward corporate-owned Internet content?

Neff, Gina. “Associating Independents: Business Relationships of the Dot-com Era” in David Silver and Adrienne Massanari, eds., Currents in Critical Cyberstudies. New York: New York University Press,  pp 294–307.