VICE ON THE WEB?

Extensive sleuthing has yielded results: I can now verify that a dedicated web surfer endowed with extreme perseverance will manage to ferret out websites on which gambling can be conducted. Pornography, too, might be viewable upon the web for someone able to devote many hours to the quest. Other vice-related goods and activities that maybe, just maybe, are available online include tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, and escorts.

OK, I overplayed the sarcasm. Vice is not only easy to find on the web, it is difficult to avoid. Vice constitutes a major component of the Internet, and the spread of the web, a spread itself fueled by vice, has greatly altered the environment in which vice-related decisions take place. Most obviously, the Internet has eased access to a wide range of vice goods. People who enjoy playing slot machines previously might have had to drive hundreds of miles to a casino to indulge their passion. Now, in much of the world, virtual slot machines can be cyber-accessed at home. Purchasing wines from small, distant vineyards was difficult two decades ago. Now, in some U.S. states, oenophiles can quickly order over the web and have delivered to their door their preferred vintages. Not only does the web improve access to many vice goods, it also makes information (not always reliable, of course) about vice easy to come by. If you want to learn about poker or opium or Australian brothels, the Internet offers myriad opportunities.