[12769] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: InfoBahumbugBahn, Internet, Convergence and us
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Raisch, The Internet Company)
Sat May 28 08:11:45 1994
Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 14:17:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
Reply-To: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
To: Daniel P Dern <ddern@world.std.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <199405261350.AA18073@world.std.com>
Interesting question, that.
My feelings on the "Will the Internet die in the light of the grand and
glorious Info-Pike?" -- A Massachusetts reference which I must TM one of
these days -- are...
Naw.
How do I support this monosyllabic denunciation?
Well, look at what the TCI's and the QVC's of this world would like us to
embrace as the Internet's replacement -- an unbalanced hybrid model of
networking which does not begin to support the model of communications we
have built here.
The consumer networks of TCI and QVC -- the Information Superhighway
everyone is screaming about -- are designed with one overriding
assumption: people just want to buy.
To be able to buy things from QVC and it's ilk, you need only as much
connection back to the network cloud to allow you to press a key and send
the message, "Why yes, Barry! I'd like to buy that!"
And as any student of George Santayana will no doubt recognize, this is the
assumption which built -- and is even now destroying -- Prodigy.
The simple reality remains that people just want to communicate.
The fundamental truth behind the global Internet and its technology is
that this is the first time we have created a communications medium with
no technological difference between the producer of information and the
consumer of information. Anyone who reads can also write, and has the
same tools and technology at her fingertips that the large publishers
have.
But even if the All-Consuming Beast of Many Wires wins and lives to
regurgitate endless prime-time hours of consumer candy-floss, I do not
think that the Internet itself will wither and die.
The lesson we learn when presented with the following fact should not be
take lightly:
You can, today, send electronic mail from
MCI-Mail to AT&T-Mail -- two enormous,
ravening competitors...
...but only through the global Internet.
-- </rr> Rob Raisch, The Internet Company
