Internet content providers will move toward hybrid systems that price various combinations of advertising, time, subscriptions, and transactions. Collecting revenue under these new regimes in the Next Generation Internet will require billing systems better than those the telephone companies have today. The telcos can bill down to something like a nickel a minute. Internet commerce will really take off when bills can go down to a mil per packet or a penny a page.
Predictor: Metcalfe, Robert
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for InfoWorld, Internet pioneer and Ethernet creator Bob Metcalfe writes: ”Internet content providers will move toward hybrid systems that price various combinations of advertising, time, subscriptions, and transactions. Collecting revenue under these new regimes in the Next Generation Internet will require billing systems better than those the telephone companies have today. The telcos can bill down to something like a nickel a minute. Internet commerce will really take off when bills can go down to a mil per packet or a penny a page.”
Biography:Robert Metcalfe developed Ethernet technology at Xerox PARC in 1973 and later developed the networking company 3Comm. He is known for making the exaggerated 1995 prediction that due to an expected overload as people tried to connect, the Internet would “go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” He later jokingly ate his words, pureeing a paper copy of the article including this comment and swallowing it before a group of onlookers. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: December 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: Online Services in for Small Change on the Next Generation Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/metcalfe/bm122595.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Pinkerton, Bradley Steven