[107592] in Cypherpunks
Re: Commerce, Community, or both (was Re: Wired Reporter
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Mon Jan 18 23:10:53 1999
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 09:26:04 -0800
To: Jamie Lawrence <jal@acm.org>, Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net, jensul@wired.com
In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990114235727.00bc2100@netcom11.netcom.com>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
At 12:29 AM 1/15/99 -0800, Jamie Lawrence wrote:
>At 01:23 AM 1/15/99 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>>The supreme irony in all of this is, the world now understands that digital
>>commerce is the only use for the internet that really matters.
>
>Wrong. I hate to drop into dreamy terminology, but I do think that
>the early experiences on the Cypher punks list bears this out:
>community is as important to the current rush for the net as the
>exchange of valued bits for valued items/information.
I'll second this, not only for the Cypherpunks, but for the Net itself,
but I'll also put in a plug for entertainment as a big driver.
Community was always a strong part of the appeal of Usenet
and of the academic and hacking cultures, e.g. FSF, Usenix, PGP.
My mother-in-law isn't one of AOL's zillions of users for commerce
(she's got the Home Shopping Network if she wants online commerce)
but because she can talk to people around the world and
keep up with the latest celebrity gossip.
Commerce does drive the economies of scale that make it convenient,
and that let more of us do cool stuff in the computer and communication
industries instead of doing Real Work like auto mechanics or ironbending,
but it's not the reason that lots of us are here.
>>So, the crypto-war is over, now, except for the shouting.
>>The state is a bugbear. It's a monster in the closet.
>>It just doesn't matter anymore. You can't legislate physics.
>
>You know, Bob, you sound a lot like Tim did a few years ago here, aside
>from the fact that Tim is a better writer and (most of the time) quite
>a bit more realistic. Just thought I'd point that out.
But if enough people believe it, it _will_ happen :-)
Occasional realism is a good thing, and there is generally at least as much
content in Tim's terser rants as in Bob long rambling ones,
but there's also value in running speaking forums or
getting bankers and hackers to go to the beach together.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
