An electronic marketplace would provide the advertising, the delivery of information, and the financial transaction services associated with buying and selling. As a result, networks could cut across traditionally separated industries. One of the greatest potential benefits of this technology for society lies in the ability to provide a true free and open electronic marketplace.
It is [the] expansion of our personal and working relationships that leads to the significant impacts on individuals, groups, and organizations with respect to both the quality of the results and the speed at which human networks can form and act within the technology of networking. This ability to “network” among larger groupings of individuals and to make any link available when needed is the heart of the idea of “superconnectivity.” However many people a person can communicate with as part of a working group through the use of face-to-face meetings and phones, the introduction of CMC potentially expands the size of the coordinated group effort by fivefold to tenfold, or more.
[A] potential barrier to electronic democracy using CMC is considerable concern in established power structures that direct citizen participation would be a dangerous weakening of the “representative” system of government on which the U.S. structure is built … The possibility of more political groups being able to organize, perhaps to the point of getting specific referenda instituted (and thus bypassing the traditional legislative and administrative branches of government), is quite frightening to those who believe that citizens cannot be trusted with this power. And of course, it is a direct threat to those who hold the jobs in the legislative and executive branches of government.
The ability of individuals to form groups around common interests on a computer network in a quick, inexpensive manner far exceeds any other way of doing this, with respect to both speed and cost. In studies of the effectiveness of networking it has been shown that people find productivity gains result from being able to communicate with people they discovered on the network and not from communicating with the people they already knew. There is no limit to the type of group that might utilize networking capabilities.
In the long run, networking technology will provide more power and opportunity for the creators of information, e.g., authors, writers, etc. The role and function of distribution will be a much smaller part of the total cost than it is today.
The users of a networking service should have all the facilities to perform as information providers … Given a true free-enterprise structure with no economic inhibitions to entry, the information industry in this country could become a major cottage industry … Even though the economics of distribution in a digital communications network are largely insensitive to economies of scale, the market mechanisms offered by service providers practically prevent individual entry into the marketing of information. This is a classic example of how our traditional understandings of the publication process are completely at odds with the opportunities offered by digital communications.
Volume discounts are inherently unfair because they give organizations an advantage based upon their size. As a result, the current pricing structure for digital communications inhibits entry by individuals and small business as well as by non-profit institutions such as schools. The establishment of thresholds for entry into the service as a provider of information, rather than a consumer, is also inconsistent with any normative view of networking as a public technology. The concept that super organizations can be created that pool resources for smaller organizations is just another mechanism for perpetuating the inequality by introducing additional levels of bureaucracy, administration, and associated costs.
Networking is a technology for citizen and public utilization. Today’s environment is largely characterized by commercial applications of the technology and not by public ones. It is like trying to understand the implications of the impact of automobiles on society by studying the role and function of trucks and buses. One has to start with an assumption that in the long run the principal application of networking will be for the average citizen and the public at large. Digital-based networking will become as widespread as the phone. It will be viewed as necessary for a citizen in a democratic society, as the telephone and television are viewed today.
There is considerable danger in attempting to extrapolate the future from existing institutional viewpoints when there is every reason to believe there will be major changes in current industry structure and in the requirements for policy and regulation. What is needed is a view of what should be as opposed to what has been.
It is possible with this technology, not just to provide courses, but to establish a “virtual university” with all the facilities necessary to make that a reality.