I don’t believe “Beavis and Butt-head” on demand is going to drive (sales on) the information highway. Every child I know already has an Encyclopaedia Brittanica within reach as they watch MTV. So why is wiring them up to the Library of Congress going to change things?
Computers will soon blow away the broadcast television industry. But computers pose no such threat to newspapers. Indeed, the computer is the perfect complement to the newspaper.
Online education is evaporating all the old boundaries, the things that kept people apart … New computer networking technology requires and enables a whole new way of teaching and learning. For the first time in human history we can have many-to-many communication across time and across space.
Instead of an Internet-inspired renaissance, mediocre writing and poorly thought-out arguments roll into my modem. E-mail and postings to network newsgroups are frequently ungrammatical, misspelled and poorly organized … Computers encourage specialized expertise, like running programs or connecting to networks, at the expense of general skills, like organizing coherent sentences, gathering thoughts together, developing vocabulary or toying with ideas.
One of the more pernicious myths of the online world is that of a literary revival.
The more concretely new information services can be designed, and the more they can be linked to tangible and familiar activities, the easier it will be for consumers to comprehend their value. Positioning attempts have already entered the vernacular, such as “electronic mail,” “electronic banking” and “telecommuting.” Of course, real benefits must ensue from such services for them to make the great leap into the mainstream.
A 500-channel cable system will surely deliver unfathomable and boundless mediocrity. And with more channels, production values will further decline, since there will be less money spent per program.
Experts point to the day when the NREN will provide students with interactive textbooks so that to study, say, weather patterns, they will log into a supercomputer that will visually model hurricanes or typhoons.
I don’t believe that phone books, newspapers, magazines or corner video stores will disappear as computer networks spread. Nor do I think that my telephone will merge with my computer, to become some sort of information appliance.
In all likelihood what will happen, and what we think ought to happen [is that government will provide funds to schools] to buy access the same way you buy a telephone line. It will take 20 years to wire the whole country with fiber, and you could do this very soon.