Readers of this sporadic column may note that it is often used as a soapbox to espouse this writer's obtuse views on electronic publishing. Responses to these columns have been intriguing. Sometimes personalities from the early days of network publishing--only about ten years ago--send a note out of the ether to agree, disagree, or corroborate certain points. At those times, I feel like an uncouth upstart talking back to my elders. Sometimes I receive letters enthusiastically agreeing with me, which does wonderful things for my ego. And of course, sometimes I receive letters emphatically disagreeing with possibly every word I have written, which--while not as gratifying as praise--causes me to rethink, reconsider, and often revise my positions and opinions.
Overall, one thing strikes me about this correspondence: almost without exception, it has been civil, considered, and worthwhile. While the opinions and feelings expressed may be strong and deeply personal, the process has been one of communication rather than the expression immutable dogma: a surprising fact considering the diversity--geographic, ideological, and cultural--between myself and many of these respondents. Pretty amazing what technology can do.
Which brings me to today's topic: since we last spoke, something terrible has happened.
I refer to the information superhighway. It snuck up on us. There we were, innocent netters, minding our own business then suddenly we were being viewed as part of an information culture we didn't know existed. Now, on the front pages of newspapers, in magazine articles, in television commercials and on the evening news, we are being described as the current info-literati--the elite group of technically-hip, wired and inexplicably arcane individuals who represent the pimogenitors of the future uberculture of "digital convergence." Sure, networks might be cryptic now, they say, but soon computers, televisions, and telephones will merge into new species of "information appliances." Imagine high bandwidth connections to every home, every office, and--through a wireless, satellite-linked cellular network--every vehicle and coat pocket in the world. Imagine video phones, video conferencing, access to limitless on-line information, voice recognition, on-line medical records, wireless financial transactions, and other high bandwidth, information applications ad infinitum. "Have you ever tucked your child in from a phone?" asks one AT&T television commercial. "You will." That is the future, they say, and it's only a few years away.
I imagine some folks are quite excited about this. But I'm not. Here's why.
Pause for a moment and think about who is going to be provide these services and applications for the information highway and why they're going to do it. The who are today's media and technology conglomerates: entertainment and publishing empires such as Paramount, Columbia, Time-Warner and Fox; technology companies such as AT&T, IBM, Apple and Microsoft; and service providers like Viacom, Sprint, and (again) AT&T. The why is universal: money. The "digital convergence" allows these companies a shot at all the money currently being spent on movie rentals, cable television, telephone service, directory information and all on-line services--and each of these companies wants a cut of your monthly service charge, plus additional per-hour costs for "premium" services. And they have reason to believe even more people will use the information highway than use these services today. They're probably right, and that raises the financial stakes even higher.
They say the video store will be dead in 1998, and I tend to believe that. I also believe telephone books, newspapers, magazines, mail-order catalogs, reference works, the postal system, ATMs and advertising will not survive until the year 2000 in their current forms. You won't have to go to an ATM to conduct transactions with your bank, you won't have to use a library or a reference book to look up information. Similarly, you won't have to consult a thick, unwieldy newsprint tome to get a phone number, or do much shopping since you can order and pay for most things over your television. You won't have to rely on physically acquiring a newspaper or magazine to keep up on news, and you won't have to buy tickets to concerts or sporting events, but can attend them on-line in full stereo and living color. It will be simple, convenient, easy to use, and it will all come to you over the infobahn. These companies want you to believe this is the greatest thing since squeezable ketchup, and there's no denying the idea is simple and powerful: anything you might desire comes to you through the wire.
But think for a second: there's nothing new about any of these applications. We've been shopping, we've used phone books, we've dialed long distance, we've been to the bank, we've purchased concert tickets and we've rented movies. That's the point: these are all activities consumers are comfortable with! They're part of our lives now, and the companies lining up to bring you the info-highway understand that. They want to give you things you already know how to do, and they want to charge you for it all over again--in a sense, they're re-inventing the wheel. Why? So they can charge you for roads (cable, connectivity and the highway itself), new tires (upgrades), driver's licenses (training on using your info-appliances), fees (a myriad of small charges for that together add up a lot of money), and, of course, taxes (the information highway is not an unalienable right, after all, and government will want a piece of the action). And you think commercials are thick on radio and television now? Just wait. The information highway will open up whole new ways to inundate you with advertising.
I'm among the many people who think that a highway is a poor metaphor for the impending digital service networks, so I'm not going stretch it much further. (After all, my oldest, slowest computer is presently directly connected to the Internet: I affectionately refer to it as my "speed bump" on the infobahn.) But the basic point is that these new digital services aren't going to provide much that we can't do already: they're simply going to provide it in a new, slicker, somewhat faster and (at least for the first few years) more costly manner. It's not that there's anything precisely wrong with these sorts of commercial applications--they will without a doubt be very successful and popular, thus being "good" for consumers and businesses alike. Without getting into the multitude of privacy and access issues raised by the info-highway, let me make it clear I do not oppose the idea of high-speed access to a myriad of services, as much as I may detest particular applications that are likely to dominate such services. I think most of us would like reliable, high-speed access to the Internet. Who wouldn't?
Instead, let me return to the thoughts that began this column. Simply put, the information highway we have now--a two lane road, if you will, often confusing, cryptic and complicated--is primarily a tool for communication. The information superhighway--with all the glittery, attractive, futuristic services to come with it--will be primarily a tool for consuming. Instead of promoting active interaction between individuals and groups using the networks, it will instead devote much of its resources to corporate and business concerns and one-way communication from provider to end-user. It's the next generation of television, and no doubt one day there will be studies showing how many hours the typical person spends each day on the information highway. But, like television, it looks like we'll be encouraged to spend most of that time in passive receivership.
So keep those cards and letters coming, folks! Show the engineers and schemers now out there building the onramps, offramps, and twisted exchanges of the info-bahn that you want more than Gilligan's Island on demand 24 hours a day. InterText will do everything it can to make sure the information highway isn't just a one-way street, but it's really up to those of us out here now, in the digital frontier, to make sure that what's special about the Internet now isn't lost in the shuffle.