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Opinion - The On-Line Future
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1994-09-02
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Topic 347 Opinion - The On-Line Future
peg:visionary cyberculture zone 1:48 AM Mar 31, 1994
Date: 16 November 1993 - Tele-Tomorrow Item
From: Bob Wells,OneNet Boulder
Subject: Opinion: The On-Line Future (from NewsBytes)
The Online Future - Atlanta, Nov 12, 93 (NB) - By Dana Blankenhorn
There's a great and growing paradox online. Users remain tied to
modems running, at best, at 9,600 bits/second. Their main choices are
among CompuServe, GEnie, America Online, Applelink, and Prodigy on the
consumer side, Dialog, Dow Jones, or Mead Data Central on the business
side. Meanwhile, billions are being spent to "dominate" the coming
world of multi-megabit services linked to cable.
While information providers and service providers work at arms- length
in today's online world, and anyone with an idea has a shot at the
market, there's a growing assumption that only "brand names" need
apply in the future. The need to control such brand names has created
a feeding frenzy among players, who like BellSouth, are determined to
be "survivors" in a game that hasn't really started.
I don't know if anyone has noticed it or not, but Prodigy has yet to
turn a profit, and will never, ever, make back the $500 million IBM
and Sears invested to open it. This is because Prodigy continues to
think it can control what people say and read online, choices best
left to free people and free markets. The same hubris is now consuming
such otherwise intelligent men as Bell Atlantic's Ray Smith,
BellSouth's John Clendenin and TCI's John Malone.
The reasons for it can be found in the Bells themselves. The networks
they offer are, compared to their promises, pitiful. If I were Ross
Perot, comparing the Bells' promises and performance, I'd be a little
crazy too. A decade ago the Bells promised a raft of new services
based on a digital standard called ISDN. ISDN delivers two 64,000
bit/second data channels and a 16,000 bit/second signaling channel to
residential customers. Today ISDN is offered in only a few places, and
I still can't get it in Atlanta, despite living just a block from a
major urban switch.
Even Bell-heads are in on this joke -- if the Bells were selling sushi
they'd call it cold dead fish. Bell-head suppliers were happily
pinning "cold dead fish" buttons to their lapels at this year's
Supercomm trade show, and the Bell-heads were laughing right along.
The problem today remains the same as it was 10 years ago, when ISDN
was the big buzzword. The Bells like to talk about competition, but
all they really understand is monopoly. They won't make investments in
plant and equipment unless they see a guarantee of profit. The same is
true of the cable companies. That's what this feeding frenzy over
Paramount is really all about -- control. The Bell-heads and
cable-head ends figure if they don't control what goes over their
systems, its cost, and the ability to keep others' content off,
investments in the "information superhighway" just aren't worth it.
As Ross likes to say, "I find that fascinatin'." Every other business
in the world seems to have figured out there's a difference between
content and distribution. The former must always be risky, in the way
that art and science are risky. There can be no guarantees the product
will be as promised. There's no way to guarantee against a movie like
"Ishtar" or "Popeye," no way to prevent a "Paula Poundstone Show" from
reaching the air for two weeks. The risks are inherent in the process
of trying something new. Distribution risks are different. They're
about balancing the cost of obtaining business with the cost of
providing service. Producers don't know if there will be any business.
Distributors just worry about getting their share, and at what price.
My point - billions and billions of dollars are going to be lost in
the next few years, billions and billions of dollars that could have
been profitably invested in fiber wires and high-capacity switches,
billions and billions of dollars which will go instead to lawyers,
deal-makers and accountants. The Japanese thought they had this game
wired too, so Sony bought Columbia while Matsushita bought
MCA-Universal. Now Matsushita wants out - even deep pockets have a
bottom to them. You'd think the Bell-heads would take a lesson from
that and stick to their knitting. Not a chance - like those old ladies
fleeced by Zero Mostel in Mel Brooks' "The Producers" a
quarter-century ago, they've got stars in their eyes and sawdust in
their veins. The tragedy is this time we'll all pay for that, in the
form of higher phone rates, and less technology online than we'd like,
that we deserve, and that we'd pay for.
(Dana Blankenhorn/19931112)