[8675] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Comments on EFF's Op-Ed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The future Ross Stapleton-Gray)
Tue Nov 30 14:58:47 1993
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 12:57:50 -0700 (MST)
From: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Barney Wolff, <barney@databus.com>, says:
> The notion that some particular technology is toxic or addicting and
> ought to be banned has, imho, no place in the virtual world.
What I think (please insert large disclaimer here, including not
representing in any way shape or form the views of either the USG
or the IITF) is that the EFF position is based more on guaranteeing
than banning, i.e., EFF doesn't want to ban asymmetric cable, but
wants to ensure outbound bandwidth. The question, of course, is how
"fat" an outbound pipe are we talking?
(The analogy that immediately sprang to mind upon reading the
criticism, though, was of the FDA and the US pharmaceutical
industry. The FDA makes drugs far more expensive than the free
market would let them be, but also ensures, at least in theory,
that citizens can't be forced by economics into two tiers: those
who can afford to pay for certified medicines, and those who can
only afford cheap, untested knock-offs. I *can't* go out and buy
any old pharmaceutical I want; the Federal government insists that
drugs be approved. This breaks down if the government isn't
then prepared to subsidize the price of drugs for those who can't
afford the FDA-approved ones...).
It strikes me that the EFF's vision is vastly more demanding on the
national infrastructure than we're likely to see even a decade from
now; essentially it's ramping up the phone system to ubiquitous
video speeds *and* embedding enough switching capacity to potentially
route all information everywhere any time it's needed.
But I'd like to hear more discussion of what we *really* think will
start happening when the average citizen has an enormous amount of
out-bound bandwidth, and there are other mechanisms for electronic
commerce. I posted something on The WELL that attempts to do a
little brainstorming on this, in a somewhat humorous vein...in lieu
of an episode of "My Beat is Cyberspace," I'll reproduce the gist of
it here:
It's 7pm, March 8, 1998, and Suzie Consumer is worried about having
enough money in her DigiCash(tm) account to pay her rent. She goes
over to her workstation, and punches up a few screens. "Hmmmm," she
says, "looks pretty lean in the market." She punches a few keys,
and purchases a place option on the Spot Video Services Market for
$200 netbux (on credit, of course), authenticated through First
Tele-National. She then goes to the closet and gets out a high-quality
video camera, switching it on and automagically linking it to her
home telecom grid, then goes to the 'fridge and returns with a
selection of spare fruits and vegetables. Pointing the camera at
the bed she then proceeds to strip and perform a variety of acts
never advocated by Joy of Cooking with aforementioned comestibles,
capturing it all on video. After 45 minutes she hops off the bed,
and sits down at the workstation to perform some post-edit work,
soundtrack dubbing, and advertisement splicing (she's got an archive
of those ads she likes--the one with the Koala is cute, and the
rainforest one is for a good cause--and gets a small remuneration
each time they run). She packages it all up, slaps a short intro
to "Suzie's Fruit & Vegetable Adventure - Part XX," and fires it off
to the Spot Market. She's tired, so she leaves the sales negotiation
to an automated package; it rejects the first offer of a straight
buy-out, and goes with $450 down and residuals of $0.25 per viewer
(she'll also get $0.01 per ad per viewer for the stuff she's spliced
in, of course, divided by the current market estimate of ad-stripping
activity by end users, as published in WSJ-Online). All across
America, happy viewers find yet another video selection available
from their local online video retailers...all evening, Suzie's
DigiCash account sees a trickle of residuals. When she wakes up in
the morning, her account's $4,000 in the black, and she celebrates
with a splurge on QVC and a live telesession watching the running of
the bulls at Pamplona, covered with BovineCam(tm).
Who knows...
Ross
