[8678] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: One-way Internet?..no, it's "Asymetric"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark R. Ludwig)
Tue Nov 30 15:16:20 1993
From: "Mark R. Ludwig" <Mark-Ludwig@uai.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9311301936.AA29830@whistler.sfu.ca>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 12:14:28 -0800
>>>>> On Tue, 30 Nov 1993 11:36:22 -0800, smith@sfu.ca (Richard Smith) said:
Ahh, the social implications of the technology...
Richard> No doubt lurkers are a kind of Internet Couch Potato, but the
Richard> *possibility* of posting is always there. Do we need to
Richard> emulate broadcast TV in order to commercialize and privatize
Richard> the internet?
No.
Richard> Is that what the vast majority of people really want, anyway,
Richard> and we should stop kidding ourselves that they will pick up
Richard> their electronic pens and fill the 'net with erudition once
Richard> there is fibre in every home?
I think the people who make money on "entertaining" us want us to
think the vast majority of people really do want primarily one-way
data flow. Even if consumers really do, I think that is exactly why
we should _not_ give it to them. I don't understand how we ended up
where we are today, but an awfully large number of people are bored
with life, and implicitly expect someone else to entertain them.
As evidence, this morning on NPR there was a report about teenagers
illegally drinking alcohol. Popular reasons: (1) life sucks; (2)
there's nothing better to do; (3) life's boring; ad nauseum. Was I so
unusual at that age (15 years ago) spending my spare time and money on
electrical parts (soldering irons, solder, wires, relays), model train
parts, and piano sheet music all of which still have _some_ value
today? The money spent on alcohol buys a lot of other stuff which is
still around the next morning. But, I digress...
It's not at all clear to me the ratio of data producers to consumers
on the _current_ Internet. I think the information is available in
the packet summaries which ANS/Merit produces. Even with that
information, the history probably doesn't help anyway, because if I
want to run a BBS today, and most people just do text things, even the
relatively small "outbound" data rates which the asymmetric
architectures provide may be enough. However, if people share
pictures, voice, or larger programs, it's a serious throttlepoint.$$
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