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Business Wants a New, Profitable Internet
An Anonymous Coward writes: "The collapse of "dot com" promises and continuing frustration at the inability of business to harness the Internet for a profit has resulted in calls to modify the basic structure of the Internet itself so it will "obey basic economic laws". See this article in the LA Times. Time to drum out the "hippie anarchists" and put some real business sense into this mess! Or, if you can't adapt your business plan to the Internet, then change the Internet to facilitate you business plan." If you haven't read Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, now would be a good time.
Here's one of the hard, harsh facts of life - politics and philosophy rarely outlive the people who subscribe to it.
Here's another: the dominant philosophy of a given group of people tends to be that of the people leading the group - and these leaders are in their 50s and 60s.
These people were typically born in the post WWII boom. They had their childhood in the 50s, their teen years in the 60s, their adult-but-politically-powerless years in the 70s and 80s. They took over the reins of political power from the generation that _fought_ in WWII, who's primary political concerns were the issues fought over in that war.
That generation was educated in WWII, and when they took political power, they were consumed with idealogical issues (communism, fascism, and capitalism) Their children were educated in economic prosparity (with little focus on pure politics) and now that they have political power, they are primarily concerned with economic issues.
Compare JFK (a politically motivated leader from the WWII generation) to Bill Gates (an economically motivated leader from the post-WWII generation)
But _our_ generation seems more and more interested in something else entirely. It's hard to describe or pigeonhole. We're not slaves to a political agenda like our grandparents. We're not (usually) slaves to our greed like our parents.
We believe in free access to information. We believe that the economic interests of corporations are subordinate to the social needs of individuals. We're better connected to each other than at any other time in human history, and that tends to make us more tolerent of each other.
The same way our parents (who have power now) can't imagine going on the Communist-witchunts of the 50s, we can't imagine (once we take over power) of passing laws like the DCMA.
The established order may not like that very much - but who cares? In 10, 20 years, they'll be dying off and irrelevant.
That doesn't mean that we don't fight and resist certain things now (the jailing of Dimitry is outrageous!) but even if we suffer local setbacks for the time being, we'll still win in the end.
Just like our children will eventually triumph over whatever idiocies we put in place when we take power.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
We DO NOT need to be harassing a Network World columnist for expressing his opinion to some reporter.
A lot of people have made the point that the net needs a better economic model, one that allows for better cost allocations for bandwidth usage. The stuff in the LA Times article is just talking about that, plus Quality Of Service and multicast features that will support investment in things like video on demand.
Nothing terrible here that I can see. If you disagree philosophically, go out and do like Clay Shirky and Jon Gilmore do and write intelligent, thoughtful, non-knee-jerk pieces about the future of the net.
DO NOT harass a commentator and justify the impression that the net is filled with irrational sux0rs (sux0r, n: one who sux.) who are bent on getting everything they want for free, now, dammit.
- jon
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
In similar news, scientists are demanding that quantum physics obey the laws of newtonian physics.
"This new science is too hard," complained one scientist. "How can we use quantum physics to make better guns when we're not even sure if schrodinger's cat is alive until we look?"
"I can't understand this stuff unless I'm as high as a kite," stated another scientist. He continued, "What am I supposed to tell people that I do? I just tell them that I play with marbles all day."
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Amen, sibling. Even if there are such things as "basic economic laws" -- which is not at all clear -- it can't fail to comply with them, anymore than than Thomas Nolle can fail to comply with the law of gravity if he jumps off a cliff.
"Having money gives me the right to manipulate the system to make more money" isn't a basic economic law, it just works that way often enough that it might seem like a basic law. Especially to those relative few who benefit from it.
Wait... someone hosting an expensive backup system over a PUBLIC NETWORK that they AREN'T PAYING FOR is complaining that they don't control it? Spare me!
Ha! Big businesses hide behind "Free market! Invisible hand!" in meatspace, but they're sorely outmatched inside the network. So they clamor for control to be handed over to them on a silver platter. Fuckwits.
The internet is like the telephone? Uh, try keeping up a correspondence with your buds in Sweden and Germany from California on twenty bucks a month.
"neighborhood Internet service providers that may be run by high school kids with a high-powered server computer and a leased phone line" -- really? If by "run", they mean "tended by unpaid labor", then *maybe*.
If these corporations want a reliable network, they can build their own. No fucking way is control of the public net getting turned over to them for a pittance.
I'm *outraged* about this. You should be too, every one of you.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
No, Mr. Nolle, the historical fact that it was devised by a bunch of military strategists (who just happened to design something that was also very useful to hippie anarchists ;-) is the reason why it fails to comply with basic economic laws.
(Plus, someone should tell him that the "laws" of economics are wholly unlike the laws of physics, and one of those "laws" says that Shit Happens when you introduce disruptive technologies into a marketplace.)
And finally, the basic economic law of supply and demand doesn't seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Take Napster (out of its misery, please ;-). When the price was zero, and the product was freely-copyable MP3 files of every artist under the sun, lots of people "bought" Napster's product. Now that external factors have raised the price, and reduced the value of the product (DRM-encumbered .nap files from a few select artists), there's less demand for Napster.
Were there costs? Sure - bandwidth costs money. But telcos' overbuilding of the backbone (combined with the failure to bring broadband to the home) was the fault of a poor business decision -- the assumption that there'd be consumer demand for the extra bandwidth.
Had there been demand for the bandwidth (incidentally, something like the old Napster would have been a great source of demand!), and had they been able to deliver that bandwidth to the home, the telcos would have made a fortune.
Don't confuse poor business decisions with the end of economics.
What companies are calling for the restructuring of the internet? What a bunch of crap (typical of the LA Times). The internet is driven by the same economic principles that govern our highway system. Much of the internet transport falls under the domain of a public utility. Just like the highway system. Some private ventures get special access rights to set up profit making operations, like gas stations and fast food joints on a major interstate. The analogy that the internet pipe is dumb is flawed. The pipe is not dumb. The pipe routes packets in the best possible manner. However, the pipe doesn't know what is in the packets, just like the stop light doesn't know what is in your car.
Someone you trust is one of us.
A few years ago, some of the VCs got the idea that this Internet thing was actually a "Good Idea" and they embraced it. They embraced it with vigor and enthusiasm. The results were:
* They piled millions upon millions of dollars on startup companies that were run by inexperienced, bright-eyed, I-think-I'm-part-of-a-new-paradigm kids
* They ran up the stock market by helping to inflate valuations on these worthless companies.
* They got filthy rich before the market collapsed.
* And now that the pathetic dot-bomb companies have failed, they want to ignore the few success stories (anyone notice how eBay is bringing in "profit" - yeah, that's where you actually make more money than you spend) and tell us all that because of their own stupidity, the Internet is flawed.
Businesses are using the Internet in myriad ways to improve service, streamline production, and eliminate waste.
But the reality of "pure play" Internet companies is that most of them simply won't work. To VCs I say this: Get over it. Look for real business models that will lead to profitability. The days of 50x returns are over. You don't need another mansion in Los Altos anyway.
The Internet works for business - just not for the overhyped, underbrained, overmonied ones.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Fundamentally, no one should make an economic profit. That is to say, no one (including CEOs) should end up with a salary any higher than necessary to find someone with the required skillset, and the profits remaining for dividends should be no higher than necessary to secure enough investors to get the business off the ground. The idea of .coms as wildly profitable businesses just because they were on this new thing called the Internet was always ridiculous. It would be like expecting someone listed on Pricewatch to make enourmous profits because they sell high tech equipment. Instead, those companies make just enough money (most of the time) to keep from defaulting on lease payments.
Likewise, most of these pure internet plays will likely end up with just enough money for a small content staff (or whatever staff they need to get their jobs done) and bandwidth. This is how economics WORKS! That's not to say people's lives are crappy under Capitalism, it just means that only monopolies (which usually only form with government support, like the phone companies or those with intellectual property (Disney, for example, has a narrow monopoly on Mickey Mouse products)) can throw the kinds of wild spending sprees that the .coms were famous for. Real capitalism tends to produce many companies, all barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth, as you see in computer assemblers/parts resellers, restaurants, farming, and so forth.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Prescriptive laws are, for instance, speed limits. They don't attempt to describe the world but to govern it. These are human social constructs and subject to rapid change. They have a goal (e.g. prohibit bad behaviour), and can be adjusted depending on how well they serve that goal. If you disobey one of these laws you're likely to be punished by your peers.
Descriptive laws are, for instance, gravity. They attempt to understand and explain the world we see. They are not human constructs (unless you're a solipsist), and are not subject to human modification. They serve no goals (unless you're a deist), and do not change. There is no opportunity to disobey these laws.
So what is this guy saying? What types of laws is he talking about? If he means that the Internet is not obeying the descriptive laws of the science economics, then he's fucked: if a verified experiment conflicts with what you think is a law, then the law goes (hint: scientific method). That would mean that the Internet is an exception to economic law. Ergo, economic law is full of holes. Oops. Not much of a descriptive law, eh?
If he means that the Internet won't obey the prescribed laws of the human construct of economics, he's equally fucked: if economic laws work so well, why are we in a recession? If they work so damn well, why was the Internet a surprise to most people? Why was the dot-com hype and crash a surprise?
In short, he's full of shit. He wants economics to be a science so he can be its High Priest ("Only I can interpret the laws of the great God economics."). But he wants it to be a set of regulations that he can impose on things he doesn't understand. Typical late 20th century capitalism, eh?
"We all say so, so it must be true!"
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
This article is silly. Have you ever read over the structure of IP and TCP headers? There's all sorts of neat things in there. One field, I don't remember whether it was TCP or IP, actually does this - sets various priority flags for the data - whether you're concerned about throughput, response time, etc. Near all routers ignore them. Why? Its not profitable.
You don't need to re-write the net. You need to put pressure on backbones to actually use the full potential of the current net (and, to be more swift in implementing IPv6).
-= rei =-
"Well, then fire it up and show me what this..." (sigh)
-------
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
Was it stupid business plans? Venture capitalists with unrealistic expectations?
I guess it was only a matter of time til failures started to blame the network that gave them the opportunity to succeed.
Let the lawsuits begin as usual. God how I wish some people would just accept responsibility for their actions and get over it!
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