John Naisbitt on the Superhighway Analogy

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

>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."