It is imaginable that, with the widespread use of digital cash and encrypted monetary exchange on the Global Net, economies the size of America’s could appear as nothing but oceans of alphabet soup. Money laundering would no longer be necessary. The payment of taxes might become more or less voluntary.
If passed, [the Digital Telephony policy] would have essentially called a halt to most American progress in telecommunncations.
Any group that sets itself up to exercise control over any portion of the Net’s activities might become as dangerous as a government or commercial controlling body … It could result in a completely different kind of abuse by the judges and the segment of the Internet population that supports the judges’ actions.
The emerging civic structures and spatial arrangements of the digital era will profoundly affect our access to economic opportunities and public services, the character and content of public discourse, the forms of cultural activity, the enaction of power, and the experiences that give shape and texture to our daily routines.
State regulators should not only allow but also encourage all forms of local infrastructure competition … Open access on the subscriber side would accelerate the technological development of cable modems and lower the providers’ risks by distributing among subscribers the cost of a large portion of the necessary equipment. On the provider side, open access would strengthen the Internet provider’s position relative to the cable firm, so that more Internet providers would be willing to ink contracts.
Skepticism about the ability of large, bureaucratic infrastructure firms to play in the fast-moving Internet industry – including either growing or attracting and retaining the necessary engineering talent – is well-founded … Entry of infrastructure providers into Internet access is a likely scenario, while success of that entry is much less likely. It is quite possible that some nimble Internet providers will establish effective capability in marketing, customer support and reputation well before the infrastructure providers learn to move quickly enough to be serious contenders.
Diffusion of Internet access via ISDN would accelerate if all regions adopted aggressive ISDN pricing.
If the new commercialism does fulfill its promise and actually provide us with better quality interfaces and sources of information it would appear to lessen that driving need for help which I think helps bind us all together. If newcomers can avoid the painful rites of passage will they still be as cooperative with their neighbors? Will it be the same Internet when we don’t all share the same scars under our clothes and tell the same horrors stories to our children? I hope so.
Can the Internet culture survive? I don’t know. I do know that it has proved a remarkably hardy creature so far. I trust that with just a little bit of care and feeding it can carry on for a good while yet. If each Internet traveller who meets it on the road will do their bit to keep it going for a while longer we can perhaps enjoy its presence for a good while to come.
Bringing together document management, digital libraries and the Web is an important goal.