connectivity issues

[don at hsph.harvard.edu (Don Olivier)]

John Chambers wrote:
> The commercial idea that the Internet is a new sort of TV really is a
> major  distortion of its design and intended use.  And it puts a real
> damper on how people can use it.

Andrew Odlyzko at AT&T wrote a fascinating paper putting this whole
issue into historical and economic perspective, with comparisons to the
development of the US Postal Service and the telephone system.

    Content is not king
    Andrew Odlyzko
    AT&T Labs - Research
    http://www.research.att.com/amo

He points out that both are point-to-point rather than broadcast
services for a simple reason: that's what people are willing to pay
for.

    ... it is definitely possible to become rich and famous in
    Hollywood.  Yet ... the annual movie theater ticket sales in the
    U.S. are well under $10 billion.  The telephone industry collects
    that much money every two weeks.

The case of US mail is particularly interesting.  For a good part of
18th century mailing of newspapers and periodicals was heavily
subsidized relative to letter mail, in the interest of helping to
integrate isolated communities into the nation.  But postage on letters
always brought in most of the Post Office's revenue, even when
newspapers far exceeded them in bulk.  The subsidy was reduced
eventually in response to pressure from people who mail letters.

Similarly, if you ask net users today whether they'd rather do without the
World Wide Web or email, there's no contest: the slick presentation and
professionally-created multimedia content go down the tubes with at most
a sigh of regret.

The message I take from Odlyzko's paper is that many of the
"connectivity issues" that trouble us today are consequences of the
desperate struggles of people facing the possible collapse of their
business models, and therefore won't last forever.  That's reassuring if
you take the long view; and it might even help with short term tactics,
by suggesting good places to stick our needles.

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