Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up.

[Jeroen van Aart <jeroen () mompl net>]

Steven Bellovin wrote:
> When I was in grad school, the director of the computer center (remember
> those) felt that there was no need for 1200 bps modems -- 300 bps was
> fine, since no one could read the scrolling output any faster than that
> anyway.
>
> Right now, I'm running an rsync job to back up my laptop's hard drive to my
> office.  I hope it finishes before I leave today for Denver.

I understand the sentiment, but the comparison is flawed in my opinion. 
The speeds back then were barely any faster than you could type, I know 
all too well the horrors of 1200/75 baud connectivity.

Luckily nowadays now it's about getting your dvd torrent downloaded in 2 
minutes, vs. 20 minutes, or 2 hours. Or your whole disk backed up before 
your flight leaves. You're now able to back it up online to begin with.

The thing here is that I talk about *necessity*. Once connectivity has 
reached a certain speed threshold having increased speed generally 
starts leaning towards *would be nice* instead of *must*.

And so far the examples people gave are almost all more in the realm of 
luxury problems than problems that hinder your life in fundamental ways.

If you have a 100 mbps broadband connection and your toddlers are 
slowing down your video conference call with your boss by watching the 
newest Dexter (hah!). Then your *need* can be easily satisfied by 
telling your toddlers to cut the crap for a while. Sure it'd be nice if 
your toddlers could watch Dexter kill another victim whilst you were 
having a smooth video conference talk with your boss, but it's not 
necessary.

Greetings,
Jeroen

--
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