[9696] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Positive plug for Michael Schrage
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David H. Rothman)
Sun Jan 16 21:11:39 1994
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 17:41:38 -0800 (PST)
From: "David H. Rothman" <rothman@netcom.com>
To: Daniel P Dern <ddern@world.std.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, dave@oldcolo.com
In-Reply-To: <199401162220.AA26894@world.std.com>
Actually I e-mailed my post to Michael Schrage and got back a friendly
note. He does see benefits of telcom as far as e-libraries, at the very
least; it's unfortunate that the lead of the column suggested someone less
progressive.
I certainly agree with his point that the money isn't there to pay for
*everything*; folks, we need to establish priorities. I say: use the money
for purposes such as e-books and K-12 networking and communets, as opposed
to frills such as fancy video networking (I won't bother here to return to
the issue of *how* we pay). Maybe later we can afford everything--but
basics first.
Anyway, I suspect that next time MS writes on data highway issues, his
brush will be narrower. Perhaps at some point he'll even do a friendly
column on K-12 efforts or something also useful, such as communets.
That would be consistent with the impression you yourself got.
--David Rothman
P.S. One clarification on my part: I'm most in favor of user-to-user
subsidies for Plain Old Telephone Service, etc. But the money just isn't
there to pay for *everything* that way. U2U is too often a lazy cop-out
for pols who'd rather turn the mess over to regulators.
On Sun, 16 Jan 1994, Daniel P Dern wrote:
>
> In his column from the LA Times (which also runs in the Boston
> Globe) like two weeks back, in talking about the Internet he
> included the point that a major part of the Internet's importance
> and value is the COMMUNITIES it sustains, not just the information
> or the technology. (The clipping I'd quote from has hidden
> somewhere :-( or is possibly busy mating with my Dave Barry
> book :-)
>
> Hurrah and huzzah, it's a pleasure and relief to see this point
> made in the public press, for a change.
>
> DPD
> "Fog and FUD sighted in Newsgroups - .GIFs at 11!"
>
