The prediction, in brief:

When a resource can be used without marginal cost, eventually community and cultural constraints will break down and the commons will be stripped bare. Ask any dolphin … Equity of access is also a worry: if the Net is as powerful as its proponents believe, what happens if a global underclass is excluded? “We believe in the pressing need for global democracy, not a global supermarket,” declared the February ’94 New Delhi Symposium on New Technologies.

Predictor: Holderness, Mike

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article he wrote for The Guardian, a London-based newspaper, technology commentator Mike Holderness says:”Any economist looking at the current state of the Internet will mutter ‘tragedy of the commons.’ When a resource can be used without marginal cost, eventually community and cultural constraints will break down and the commons will be stripped bare. Ask any dolphin … so how should MIT fund increased capacity, or how should London’s Imperial College or the University of Cologne pay for a full-service regional archive? Any mention of charging for services produces a welter of panicked messages. Often, in this febrile infosphere of instant response, people confuse charges for services with charges for communications; the more thoughtful see the latter as the biggest threat. It is precisely because use of the Net bears a fixed cost, many say, that it has been able to develop so rapidly and imaginatively. Equity of access is also a worry: if the Net is as powerful as its proponents believe, what happens if a global underclass is excluded? ‘We believe in the pressing need for global democracy, not a global supermarket,’ declared the February ’94 New Delhi Symposium on New Technologies.”

Date of prediction: June 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Cost/Pricing

Name of publication: Guardian (London)

Title, headline, chapter name: High Anxiety for Hitchhikers on the Infobahn: Just as Millions Outside the Groves of Academe Discover the Joys of Essentially Free Global Communications on the Internet, it’s All Changing

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/articles/gdn-netb.htm

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney