[9549] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Internet in a box
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Galloway)
Mon Jan 10 03:58:32 1994
From: John Galloway <jrg@rahul.net>
To: clays@panix.com (Clay Shirky)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 00:57:32 -0800 (PST)
Cc: jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us, bmanning@is.rice.edu, stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com,
In-Reply-To: <199401100413.AA24391@panix.com> from "Clay Shirky" at Jan 9, 94 11:13:50 pm
Reply-To: jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us
>
> > I'm not so sure. The nationwide or regional provider will be able
> > to reap economies of scale the local shop will not, and the answer
> > for support is making the technology support itself, not to provide
> > nearby humans. After all when was the last time you needed help in
> > configuring your telephone or water/power utility service?
>
> These are relatively stable technologies compared to the net. Furthermore,
> people rarely take it upon themselves to write custom scripts for their
> kitchen sinks. The scale, rate of change and degree of customizability all
> make human support invaluable. As someone noted here, people want to buy
> technology off the shelf right up to the moment where they need help.
Sure, I'm not saying that the technology exists right now, but I think it
is within easy reach. LANs are pretty close to the point that just about
anyone can connect a couple of machines together. Mass WAN connections
are going to need some appliance (router) that configures itself, can
be monitored by the provider, etc. that the user simply plugs into the
provider's wall socket and into his LAN just like he did with his two
systems and his printer (or even his one system). Of course with SW
support in popular OSs and LAN/WAN managers.
-jrg
