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John Naisbitt on the Superhighway Analogy
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 20:40:19 -0500
From John Nainbitt's new book Global Paradox: The Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful Its Smallest Players...
"This network of networks is often referred to these days as an 'information superhighway.' This is not a good analogy. What is being put together now is a patchwork of networks. It is being built from the bottom up in the marketplace. Superhighway has echos of large scale command and control systems (like the old Interstate system that had federal plans and standards and 90/10 matching grants and federal overseers). The networks are emerging: no one is in charge. The superhighway metaphor is a huge step backward just as we are entering the age of distributed systems. In time, it will come to stand for what is really happening. In the meantime, it is not a helpful analogy."
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- John Naisbitt on the Superhighway Analogy David Farber (Jan 24)