IP: Internet Battle Is Idealism vs. Income

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 11:13:10 -0400
> To: "David Farber":;
> From: "K.Ellis" <guavaberry () earthlink net>
> Subject: Internet Battle Is Idealism vs. Income
>
> Dave,
>
> IPers will be interested and you are mentioned.
> Publish with permision.
>
> For More Info:
> Pioneers
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/IEC/pioneers.html>
> Security
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/SECURITY.html>
> Privacy
> <http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/SECURITY.html#privacy>
>
>
>
> DIGITAL NATION
> Thursday, April 19, 2001
> Internet Battle Is Idealism vs. Income
> By Gary Chapman
> Copyright 2001, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved
>
>
> People concerned about the future of the Internet have reasons to be 
> worried. There are some ominous lessons emerging from the wreckage of the 
> dot-com crash, lessons that could turn the Internet into something quite 
> different from what many visionaries hoped it might become. It's 
> significant that several of the earliest Internet pioneers are starting to 
> sound alarms about where the Internet is headed now.
>
> One recent lesson absorbed by many investors is that the Internet is 
> probably too vast, too untamed and too chaotic to sustain business models 
> such as the ones that generated so much frenzied enthusiasm before the 
> stock market tipped over a year ago. With millions of Web pages and e-mail 
> messages competing for attention, it takes too much money and fortitude to 
> create an online business with a steady stream of loyal, paying customers. 
> The idea that anyone with an e-commerce Web site could sell anything under 
> the sun seems completely dead now.
>
> The alternative seems to be a move toward closed networks, not unlike 
> America Online, in which the user experience is guided, shaped and far 
> more controlled -- something advertisers and online retailers are 
> demanding. In other words, there is a growing sense in the high-tech 
> industry that consumer networks of the future will begin to look more like 
> television -- indeed, some believe interactive digital TV is the true wave 
> of the future.
>
> Michael Hirschorn, editor of the online magazine Inside.com, said at last 
> month's South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin that he'll be 
> surprised if in five years people are looking at the Internet through a 
> Web browser. More likely, he thinks, will be widespread use of interactive 
> TV networks managed by large media companies.
>
> In the current issue of Wired magazine, the cover story is about how 
> high-speed broadband networking companies will eventually offer new forms 
> of interactive programming, such as digital video and games, for a fee. 
> But many of these new services will require network connections that 
> bypass the current Internet to guarantee no time delay in a digital video 
> stream or in a consumer's interactive commands. "Quality of service" will 
> become important and thus will be packaged and sold as a competitive 
> advantage. That points to closed and managed networks.
>
> That's what is worrying some old-hand Internet engineers and activists. On 
> May 5 and 6, a small group called People for Internet Responsibility 
> (http://www.pfir.org) will host an invitation-only meeting in Culver City 
> of Internet pioneers, public interest advocates and others who think the 
> "egalitarian vision" of the Internet is worth preserving. PFIR is led by 
> Peter Neumann of SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., one of the 
> world's leading experts on computer security; Lauren Weinstein of Vortex 
> Technology in Woodland Hills, the longtime moderator of the online Privacy 
> Forum; and Dave Farber, professor of computer engineering at the 
> University of Pennsylvania, the recent chief technologist of the Federal 
> Communications Commission and one of the most respected sages of the Internet.
>
> As Neumann and Weinstein told me: "The Internet is in grave danger of 
> being essentially hijacked. It's being turned from a powerful tool that 
> should serve the interests of all humanity into instead an asset of vested 
> interests who mainly have their own well-being and concerns in mind. We 
> hope to find paths to help assure that the Internet will be a resource to 
> benefit everyone."
>
> This is part of an ongoing and sometimes heated debate. Many Internet 
> idealists think the commercialization of the Internet has been a blight 
> and an embarrassment -- a depressing repetition of our experience with 
> radio and TV. Online business leaders, however, retort that the Internet 
> was available to only a tiny elite until it was taken over by the private 
> companies and entrepreneurs who turned it into a mass-consumer service.
>
> The Internet won't survive unless it's economically viable. But the vision 
> of egalitarian, universal communication benefiting all of humanity won't 
> survive if economics is all the Internet is about.
>
> Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of 
> Texas at Austin. He can be reached at >Texas at Austin. He can be reached at gary.chapman () mail utexas edu.
>
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