Several entrepreneurs are mixing the global reach and low cost of the Internet with the lax legal climate of certain Caribbean locales, where hiding money from the U.S. tax and legal system is a major industry. The potential result: Any desktop or laptop could be a gambling terminal – U.S. (or any other) law be damned.
Once the bandwidth of the Web increases, Herschman aims to re-create the whole Vegas experience, with the hope of being well positioned for the day when online wagering is legalized.
[Gambling is] a vice that will drive masses of people to interact in virtual worlds. In some ways, the ability to be hedonistic virtually is better than doing it in real life.
Cyberspace is gambling’s next frontier. And why not? Transposed to the Net, gambling could be everywhere and nowhere at once. You could belly up to the crap table in secret whenever you want, without having to put up with the other fools doing the same. Since many of the online gambling establishments are shadow companies headquartered offshore, your own private cybercasino might offer the perfect shelter from the taxes the government imposes on you when you win. And since it could be done anonymously, you could avoid the shame your friends and family impose on you when you lose.
A mirror world is some huge institution’s moving true-to-life mirror image trapped inside a computer … Such a system would give us “whole-sightedness,” the ability to see the whole operation, object, or community and thereby, presumably, make the right decisions when we wish to change or interact with the system.
The true potential of the information superhighway: making everyday life for most people somewhat easier and less irritating.
Long-time users of The Internet express anxiety over what might happen as commercial interests become increasingly developed: Will they be pushed aside? Will they lose their access? Will it become too costly for them to use the Net? Besides the culture of the Internet, marketers face a number of hurdles that must be overcome if the Internet is to become the backbone of a commercially viable Information Superhighway.
Free-Market Internet: [In this scenario,] thousands of individual entrepreneurs …small businesses and large communications empires set up shop on the Information Superhighway in a free-market version of the Internet. While there would probably be a “toll charge” to tour the highway, the customer could freely visit available service providers, paying only for services actually rendered. Quite likely, there would be a number of free public access services.
The Electronic Shopping Mall: In this dynamic extension of the first scenario, a concentrated number of providers will take over the Information Superhighway and render it a giant electronic mega-mall. This means, for starters, that the customer must pay an entry fee to gain access to the “mall,” even to “window shop.”
You have more than likely heard the visions of, for example, interactive television, 500 channels and video on demand. Interactive multimedia, that dynamic merger of video, audio and computer technology, could enable the Information Superhighway to deliver a dazzling array of entertainment and educational alternatives onto screens in American homes. While far beyond the current capabilities of cable television, this scenario of the Information Superhighway represents a relatively modest degree of innovation. This limited view of the Information Superhighway presents the consumer with more options, but it is virtually identical in spirit to existing services, such as movies-on-demand offered by many hotels.