[9969] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: networkMCI ads
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Raisch, The Internet Company)
Mon Jan 31 14:32:00 1994
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 10:51:38 -0800 (PST)
From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
To: Ken Deutsch <deutsch@ba.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.85.9401310807.A25730-0100000@ba>
Ken, thanks for your comments on com-priv. (Throughout, "your" refers to
TCI/BA/&c.)
As I am sure you are aware, there are significant differences between
being a provider of information and being a provider of access to
information. What I believe concerns us the most are your plans regarding
information publishing.
If we have learned anything from Prodigy and others, it must be that
people simply wish to communicate and that there are fundamental
differences between a consumer network and a communications network.
What the former lacks is any real concept of "dialog." There is no
participation inherent in a consumer network.
TCI/BA/et. al. must decide what business they are in. If, as it appears,
you wish to be in the business of publishing information, there are few
incentives for you to enable others to publish as well. I would suggest
that strong relationships with QVC/Viacom/Paramount/&c. only succeed in
blurring the lines between provider of content and provider of access.
These are your customers, not your partners.
(John Malone is sending clear signals that TCI sees itself in the
publishing business. This suggests a very frightening future where all my
customers must connect to me over lines controlled by my competitor.)
By providing a connection to the GII which supports large bandwidth
inwards (to the home) and only a small connection outwards (away from the
home), you will be creating an entire class of consumers who will not be
able to share in the world we have already created here. These are the
informationally disenfranchised -- those who do not have the ability to
reap the benefits of the GII -- those who are kept poor by te very fact
that they do not have the same access to infrastructure as those who
control the wire.
There are those (myself included) who believe that the real value of the
global Internet springs from the fact that there are no technological
differences between the producer and consumer of information.
Even in a world where most do not initially wish to become publishers,
following a "hybrid networking" solution removes the potential that they
MIGHT become publishers and this is anathema to the value of what we have
in the global Internet.
-- </rr> Rob Raisch, The Internet Company
