The entire economic model of telecommunications – based on charging per minute, per mile, or per bit – is about to fall apart. As human-to-human communications become increasingly asynchronous, time will be meaningless (five hours of music will be delivered to you in less than five seconds). Distance is irrelevant: New York to London is only five miles further than New York to Newark via satellite.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 column for Wired magazine, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab, writes about his new book “Being Digital”: ”I did learn a few things as I mined my columns for the themes that run throughout ‘Being Digital.’ The first is that bits are bits, but all bits are not created equal. The entire economic model of telecommunications – based on charging per minute, per mile, or per bit – is about to fall apart. As human-to-human communications become increasingly asynchronous, time will be meaningless (five hours of music will be delivered to you in less than five seconds). Distance is irrelevant: New York to London is only five miles further than New York to Newark via satellite. Sure, a bit of ‘Gone with the Wind’ cannot be priced the same as a bit of e-mail. In fact, the expression ‘a bit of something’ has new and enormous double meaning. You cannot experience a bit. It must be turned back into atoms for human beings to enjoy it. While the process of converting bits to atoms has become sensory-rich, the reverse direction – turning atoms into bits – is almost desolate. Human input to machines is Paleolithic and keeps most parents and many of our friends from being wired.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Being Digital: A Book (P)review
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/negroponte_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney