Slashdot Mirror
How the Internet Didn't Fail As Predicted
Lord Byron Eee PC writes "Newsweek is carrying a navel-gazing piece on how wrong they were when in 1995 they published a story about how the Internet would fail. The original article states, 'Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.' The article continues to say that online shopping will never happen, that airline tickets won't be purchased over the web, and that newspapers have nothing to fear. It's an interesting look back at a time when the Internet was still a novelty and not yet a necessity."
What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is that the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading.
And along comes Slashdot et al with moderation and meta-moderation schemes to allow the crowd to edit the stream. Problem solved (sort of). Hard to imagine that it was impossible to see lack of editing as anything other than an insurmountable obstacle. But the article was written by journalists with editors, so maybe that explains their limited vision.
What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another.
So he was able to see that human contact was the thing that was missing from the internet - and then blew it. Because of his lack of vision, he's still eating Ramen Noodles. Meanwhile Zuckerberg and Tom Anderson and many others made billions on Facebook and Myspace etc. solving exactly those problems.
Actually, that's a nice lesson for the Slashdot crowd. Remember that idea you were just panning as stupid and unworkable because of xyz flaw that only you could spot? Yep, that's opportunity knocking.
People who think they are very self-important tend to underestimate the impact of things they did not directly influence. Perhaps he was not involved with the PC and thus thought it was destined to failure. You think I'm crazy? Not so. Just think of the old adage, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" and similar such phrases. True in some cases, sure... but the more self-important one starts seeing one's self, the less able that person is to view the innovation of others as worthwhile and lasting.
As I said on my blog****, the irony was that within 1 year of his article JavaScript was released in Netscape Navigator 2.0 and Brin and Page began Google. The former played a key role in enabling a lot of the usefulness in the web and the latter played a key role in organizing it effectively from the viewpoint of the public, especially to the extent that his point about how hard it was to find useful data was negated by Google.
I have to agree with Newsweek's writer who criticized him by saying that his problem wasn't in stating what the problems were, but his blithe assumption that they would never be overcome. That, right there, was the fatal flaw as it assumed that the computer industry was not invested in the Internet's future. That's almost like assuming that the established auto companies have no interest in the electric car market and would gladly let Tesla take it over unmolested.
****Just an ironic dig since he figured that blogging would never become mainstream, let alone that some bloggers (myself excluded) would become powerful players in the media.
One of my favorites was from Danny Hillis, a pioneer in parallel computing. "I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually be in the millions, someone else asked, 'Where are they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!"
Years later, Hillis went back to the same hotel. He noticed that the room keys had been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. There was indeed a computer in every doorknob..
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
The iPod was pretty lame when it was introduced. Only worked on Apple, limited space, limited features, pretty much set the stage for most Apple products.
It was only until several years later when increased the storage, added color, and allowed it to work on PC did it take off.
According to the article, Stoll's excuse is that he was trying to play the contrarian:
Contrarianism helps sell magazines (and garners pageviews) but let us not forget that it is usually WRONG. Yes, humbling as it may be to admit, the great unwashed masses, the "sheeple", are usually right in their collective opinions. Contrarians often escape punishment for their folly because no one cares, but in this case Stoll got properly burned.
Don't get me wrong, I tend to go into withdrawls if my connections go down for an extended period of time, but, the internet being a necessity? I dunno. There are plenty of people out there that live and breathe and make money with no connection or need to the internet whatsoever. I don't think it is truly a necessity like shelter and food.
While *I* would not want to live without it, people still can pretty easily these days.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Nah. That was predicted back in 1949. Though he was off by a few years on the actual timeline.
It also "won" because of the interface, something everybody on slashdot keeps ignoring. Do you remember what the interfaces of pre-ipod mp3 players were like? No comparison.
But in modern industrialized societies, hypothetically turning off the entire Internet would have secondary effects on those who don't use it in their daily lives or work. Not that people would die in large numbers or anything.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
and since it existed when they were born, my children will think there was always an internet and that it was always big, and that people always had a computer or four in their homes.
For example, don't you think that the automated and streamlined ordering systems that corporations use to reduce costs on necessary goods used by the poor would suffer?
It's necessary in the same way that roads and highways are necessary for the developed world. Sure, we could do without, but there would be a discernable difference if you removed either.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
What are you like 4 years old? It took off immediately like it was shot out of a cannon, faster than the Sony Walkman did--is that not fast enough for you?
Apple knows their markets very well. The high-end Mac Pro tower is far, far easier to open and modify than any other tower case I've used. Lift a lever, pull away the side, and you have each access to everything. Because that's what most of the Mac Pro customers want. iPhone customers? Not so much.
E pluribus unum
Don't let this scare you or anything, but you know about ham radio? That chunk of spectrum and users whose motto is "when all else fails"? Who spend time supporting disaster relief and emergency services?
A lot of those folks are putting their eggs in the internet basket, relying on the internet to get email through when local communications systems go down. If the local internet goes down, so local email won't get through, they're planning on using HF or VHF radio to get email out of the disaster area and into the hands of state and federal agencies.
If the internet goes down on a large scale, those messages will go nowhere, and the senders won't know that they aren't going anywhere.
What's even scarier is the draconian anti-spam measures being used. If you aren't on the radio user's whitelist and you don't know the secret code to bypass it, your email won't go through. The bounce message doesn't tell you the secret, and it doesn't alert the intended recipient that you tried. You could be Barack Obama himself, and if whitehouse.gov isn't in the recipient's whitelist, your email won't get delivered. Users in a disaster area who want to turn this feature off cannot.
Yes, but of the people to which you refer, how many of them earn their living providing services to others? And how many of those others depend on the internet for their jobs?
The crew who repaired my roof or the guy who changed my oil might not depend directly on the internet, but he depends on my money, which does depend on the internet.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Like the way they didn't even have a power button?
I spent some time playing with my friends original b/w iPod a few years back and actually, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. Then I spent three minutes trying to find the damn power button. Wow, that was an amazing design.
Juln
Oh, I beg to differ on this one. I would KILL to be able to replace my battery in my iPhone or plug in a memory stick (and save email attachments to it.)
It's a matter of convenience. Things would be harder, and progress would be a little slower. A very small minority of people would feel the adverse impact in any significant way and they'll have to learn to live with it, but most people will go back to their televisions and newspapers and radios.
But it isn't as if everybody's going to go hungry all of a sudden, or if man-made structures are going to collapse.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
You are not most people.
E pluribus unum
*"What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data."*
That hasn't changed.
*"What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact."*
Still no real change. Despite social networking sites. It just isn't the same.
His point about teachers is still true. Technology is secondary to good teachers.
I love this quote:
*"But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community."*
The interweb is still trendy and oversold.
So, somethings have not changed. Not at the core anyway.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I disagree. You could say the same about the paved road network.
Yes, life would go on if we had to revert to 30mph single lane dirt tracks. Yes, you would be quite able to live your life individually by avoiding the road network (not own a car, not ride the bus). Yes there are alternatives to the road (rail, aircraft, canals, etc.).
But that doesn't mean the road network isn't a necessity. If it were ripped up right now today then there would be serious repercussions- even for the minority who doggedly never use it. Businesses would crumble, quality of life would drop.
If the internet were switched off tomorrow, there would be repercussions. Even if you never use it yourself, it would still effect you.
Well put. I recall reading an article some time back where some major executive was arrogantly dismissing the necessity of email and text messaging because *he* never used it, though he did acknowledge that his assistants did all his electronic communication. It was like someone claiming driving was unnecessary because they have a chauffeur.
Some people don't seem to get that just because they don't use personally use a specific innovation like the internet or evolutionary biology that they may still benefit from it or even be dependent on it.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
>The article's author had a stunning failure of vision.
Do you realize the monumental volume of blood, sweat, and tears that went into making Wikipedia? It's 1% technology, 99% human effort.
I don't think it was easy to imagine that hundreds of thousands of people would just suddenly start writing everything down. Not to mention, db-backed sites were so rare in '95 that Cliff Stoll may have never seen one.