The prediction, in brief:

The possibility that the future ‘Internet’ (or whatever replaces it) will turn out to be a monolithic corporate-controlled electronic consumer shopping mall and amusement park is antithetical to the idea that the individual in the electronic communications world is a producer as well as a consumer, desires to interact freely with other groups and individuals there, and is the most qualified director and creator of the medium. A future centered around a one-way entertainment model would effectively gag those who would use networks as forums to exercise the freedoms that define our democracy.

Predictor: Figallo, Cliff

Prediction, in context:

The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet” by Cliff Figallo. Figallo, a networking consultant in the San Francisco area who served as director of the Whole Earth Lectronic Link from 1986 to 1992, writes:”The possibility that the future ‘Internet’ (or whatever replaces it) will turn out to be a monolithic corporate-controlled electronic consumer shopping mall and amusement park is antithetical to the idea that the individual in the electronic communications world is a producer as well as a consumer, desires to interact freely with other groups and individuals there, and is the most qualified director and creator of the medium. A future centered around a one-way entertainment model would effectively gag those who would use networks as forums to exercise the freedoms that define our democracy.”

Biography:

Cliff Figallo, was managing director of the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, one of the best known conferencing systems and virtual communities in the United States in the 1990s) and a director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cambridge office in the early 1990s. He later worked with Pandora Systems. Figallo and John Coate are regarded to be the chief architects of the WELL’s implementation of virtual community. (Advocate/Voice of the People.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)

Title, headline, chapter name: The WELL: A Regionally Based On-Line Community on the Internet

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 50

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne