The 21st Century is going to go past search into analysis. And what analysis really is is cross-correlating information from many sources. And then what you will be able to do is solve problems, not just find things at random. And in order to do this, what you need underneath is very fine-grain classification. That’s the only known way of handling the world of a billion repositories.
The Net of the future will have many levels of publications. You’ll have some personal documents. You’ll be the editor of a few small newsletters or clubs. You’ll be part of some professional societies and each will have a professional letter or journal, because that’s a big enough community that there will be enough people to be worth indexing in a more professional way. And so on to ever large communities … There will be a billion repositories, whether you like it or not … What we need are new architectures for systems that actually do something about analyzing and cross-correlating from multiple sources.
An unregulated company in the Caribbean could lose its shirt, pull the plug on its computer, and go dark without paying the winners. Or the law of diminishing returns could set in, and the proliferation of gambling could once again lead to its reduction. Like George Washington, most Americans are of two minds when it comes to such things. We could reach a point when the public once again says enough’s enough.
Nelson Rose has an exact, if totally unscientific, prediction for when this current [Internet-based gambling] wave will crash: 2029. But he’s not willing to bet on it.
It could be inevitable that cyberspace becomes the next frontier that’s paved with gambling dollars. If so, it seems likely that gambling on the Net won’t simply be contained to traditional games, like blackjack, horse races, and football. Perhaps the day will soon come when people can sit down at their personal computers, open their digital wallets, and obtain odds on just about everything
Home computers and gambling are a frightening combination.
The new technology [will freshen] the parimutuel business with younger players.
Even if it remains illegal, emerging technologies will make gambling on the Internet all but undetectable by law enforcement. Encryption, for instance, will make it possible to hide the contents of illegal transactions from federal wiretappers.
Donald Trump’s gargantuan Taj Mahal … was forced into bankruptcy a little more than a year after it opened in 1990. Not one [casino] has been built since. The same thing could happen in cyberspace. The early pioneers could become fabulously wealthy. Then the market could quickly become saturated.
Cybergambling could well become a conflict like pornography on the Internet. And when politicians realize that money flowing offshore could be routed into the taxable U.S. economy, they may start talking tough.