[10696] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Re: CCN's Clarification re: Internet Local Loop
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (thosstew@aol.com)
Sun Mar 6 01:20:09 1994
From: thosstew@aol.com
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 94 18:13:17 EST
When telephones first came in,and people mostly used them for business. For
home use, they were a luxury.
When computers first were invented, ditto. Why, Microsoft made its gazillins
on the office computing market, and as recetnly as a couple of years ago
learned pundits punditted that the PC would never be a mass consumer product,
and now one out of 3 households has one and Microsoft has jumped into the
personal software market with both feet.
Who's to define what's necessity and what's luxury? Teachers don't have
phones at school, except in the lounge, but they have them at home, and would
consider them a necessity. Netoid and onliner I know talks about the friends
and/or lovers he or she has found thru these connections. Is that a luxury?
Maybe you will fall in love with the girl next door--but maybe the woman of
my dreams is behind the next gateway instead.
I agree, regulated access isn't the way to go, certainly as long as access is
growing so fast, prices continue to tumble, and competition is so--how to
say?--enthusiastic. But necessity, or something awfully close to it, is just
around the corner. Finding a way to acknowledge it without regulation--that's
a challenge that needs to be met by some other means than denying how
imminent necessity is.
Tom
