[11626] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: PC Magazine Editorial -- Why Stay Off the Highway?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aneurin Bosley)
Mon Apr 11 23:14:35 1994
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 15:17:25 -0400
From: bosley@aix1.uottawa.ca (Aneurin Bosley)
To: 157.9301@mcimail.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, cpi@ca.dynix.com, sackman@plains.nodak.edu
Robin Raskin
Editor
PC Magazine
Dear Ms. Raskin,
I read with amazement your editorial of April 26, 1994,
entitled Why Stay Off the Highway? The Information Highway
is the fastest growing communications medium in history, and
we have to assume that there are some good reasons that
approximately one million new users apply for "driver's
licenses" every month. But your editorial left me wondering
why all these people would sign up. According to you, the
Highway is "too slow", is "a misinformation highway", is "an
expensive habit", is populated by on-liners who "abandon the
rules of good behavior", and is "inefficient". Quite
frankly, I cannot think why we should take any of these
objections to the Information Highway very seriously, but
the first two I find most surprising of all.
To begin with, many people are still wondering what the
Information Highway is, exactly. We have all been inundated
by promises of a great global Superhighway, but nobody know
exactly what this is going to be. All we have at the moment
(a few independent online commercial services
notwithstanding) is the Internet. But the extent to which
the Internet will eventually resemble the Information
Highway is purely a matter of speculation. It is probably
safe to assume that the Highway will end up being much like
what the Internet is "becoming", namely a global
communication/commercial medium, filled with virtual store-
fronts and entertainment centres. But again, this is just
speculation. The problem is that many people confuse the
Internet with the Highway, or maybe they think the two are
the same thing. You yourself seem to treat the two as the
same thing, so let's say that they are, for argument's sake.
The Highway is Too Slow
You argue that one reason for staying off the Highway is
that it is too slow. I suspect that nobody hates waiting for
computers/machines more than I do, but consider the
ramifications of arguing that we should stay off the Highway
because it is too slow. I happen to think that public
transportation is too slow, but I still think it is a good
idea. And come to think of it, if everybody thought that a
thingAs being too slow was good enough reason for abandoning
it, I can assure you that we would not be driving cars right
now ("darn those Model-T's were just too slow, so we packed
it in on making them"). And the old 8088's? What about my
old Apple IIe with the 300 Baud modem? And my Texas
Instruments TI-99? Holy cow those were slow!
All joking aside, our speed-crazed society has lost touch
with any object range, which might support your criticism
that a thing is too slow. "Too slow for what?" I ask myself.
People are too quick to answer "Well, I hate waiting." No
kidding; me too, but there we are. "Wait", someone will say.
"Every minute I spend waiting for Mosaic to render an inline
image is a minute I could be working to make my company more
successful." Well, thereAs always multi-tasking. And
besides, researching some topic using Mosaic (providing its
available online) is significantly quicker than wandering
down to the local archives collection and browsing through
the stacks. Besides, this latter option may not even be
available to many people.
In any case, the real point here is that we are not always
going to be accessing information from the Highway at 14.4K.
V.fast is shipping; ISDN is becoming available in more and
more places. (Come to think of it, why would we even be
fooling around with modems, 2 or 3 years down the road?) If
the Highway seems slow, then we have good reason for
thinking that it will quickly become faster. (Nothing like
those market forces to drive innovation and competition.)
Misinformation Highway?
You go on to argue that the Highway is a veritable warehouse
of misinformation, because it gives everybody a voice and
thus the ability to become an authority. This is a very
elitist thing to say, which reflects an attempt to keep
proper ranks among true authorities. But come to think of
it, what exactly IS an authority, anyway? Typically, an
authority is someone whose opinions command respect and
belief. But somebody is not an authority simply by virtue of
the fact that they happen to think that they are. Many other
people have to think so as well. Now one of the conventional
ways in which people become authorities is through exposure
in the mass media. Unfortunately, the mass media is rather
selective about who they give exposure to, and even then the
"authority" often only has the opportunity to pay lip
service to a few gems of conventional wisdom, before she is
put on hold for a message from your local sponsor.
One of the great things about the Internet is that it DOES
give people a chance on the soap-box. Doesn't this just help
to further the aims of a liberal democracy? Complaining that
everybody gets to be an expert is like saying that freedom
of speech is all well and good, until somebody says
something you don't like. The implicit assumption lurking
here is that most people are by and large too stupid to
figure out how to sort the wheat from the chaff, or that
many people are too stupid to have anything useful to say.
Given a choice, I would rather see intelligent discussion on
a subject between many people, than be fed some information
by an "authority". Now this is not to say that the idea of
an authority ought to be abandoned. In fact, this is neither
desirable nor probably even possible in principle. I would
simply rather be in a position where I could make that
decision myself, rather than have Ted Turner and his gang
make the decision for me.
The question that arises is why you would raise such
objections to the most remarkable form of human
communication history has ever seen? It is an interactive
global medium for commercial activity, education,
entertainment ... and itAs relatively cheap. (We pay less
for a corporate connection than we do in phone bills.) The
Highway will undoubtedly break up the information monopoly
which is held by the few key publications and networks, much
like Ziff-Davis and Turner Broadcasting. Should people
associated therewith fear the coming of the communications
revolution? Well, if "authorities" ARE such because of good
content, then clearly not. But if they are authorities
simply by virtue of their near-monopoly position, then maybe
so. The people on the Highway will decide.
Sincerely,
Aneurin Bosley
====================================================
Aneurin Bosley
Editor
The Internet Business Journal
ak943@freenet.carleton.ca
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