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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