IP: "The Thrill of the Internet" is gone?

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Maybe it is best if the thrill is gone and replaced by the use of the net 
> for real day by day living djf




> Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 09:02:58 -0800
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Wulf Losee <wlosee () cisco com>
> Subject: "The Thrill of the Internet" is gone?
>
> Dave:
> I thought that IPers might be get a chuckle out of this. I guess it turns 
> out that the Internet was just a fad. ;-)
>
> (Anyway, this quote is evidently from a recent Baron's article. It was 
> just forwarded to me, but I'm afraid I don't have the exact title and date 
> it was published.)
>
> > [The] less-than-encouraging news about Internet usage is that we've just
> > caught up with a study on that very subject prepared for
> > PriceWaterhouseCoopers by Opinion Research Corp. International.
> >
> > What the survey found, in a nutshell, was that the Internet craze in the
> > U.S. seems to have peaked. Specifically, the average Jane and Joe now
> > spend 4.2 hours each week on the World Wide Web, down significantly from
> > 5.3 hours last year and even below the 4.8 hours of 1998.
> >
> > According to the report, "fewer Americans are sending and receiving
> > e-mails this year." And fewer, too, are reading publications online,
> > watching live events and participating in chatroom chatter.
> >
> > Most respondents claimed that e-mailing and researching information are
> > their primary reasons for logging on. We assume the ever-popular porno
> > features fit the latter category.
> >
> > One inference is that a lot of time is spent online at places other than
> > where the ads are. But more importantly, so far as the public goes, the
> > thrill of the Internet is most unmistakably gone.