@Home Post Mortem: Who or What Killed @Home?

bofus writes: "This article from CNet points to AT&T taking over the @Home board as the nail in the coffin for @Home. It starts out as a tale of possible corporate espionage, with a top techie from AT&T moving to @Home and then back to AT&T, but the guy in question seems to have done nothing but good for @Home while he was there."

Comments

Possible reason

[sharkey]

Maybe because you could browse the web for an hour, and end up knowing more about networking (and geography) than @HOME specialists?

Broadband just isn't useful enough.

[The Sojourner]

I'm not much of a techie, I'll admit. My primary Internet connection is AOL over a crappy winmodem, but this is perfectly adequate for what I use the Internet for. When I'm at my boyfriend's apartment I play around with his cable internet connection sometimes; the only real advantage I see is that webpages load a bit faster. He tried to show off all the fancy streaming media, Flash animations, and online games his broadband connection supported, but I have to admit I am not impressed in the least.

I'm not interested in Quake 3. There's no "streaming media" or whatever it's called on the Internet I can find that I can't just watch on TV. All I need the 'net for is e-mail, looking up the occasional website, and maybe talking to some friends on ICQ. This is what killed @home, and what is slowly cutting away the margins of the few remaining broadband companies. There are too many players in a field we consumers just aren't interested in, and the market can't support it. The "broadband revolution" is a fluke, just like the Internet Appliance hubbub a few years ago.

I might look into getting a cable internet connection in a few years, when a "killer app" comes out that makes it worth my time and money; right now, I just can't see why anybody other than a pasty-faced computer dork would need broadband.