Volume discounts are inherently unfair because they give organizations an advantage based upon their size. As a result, the current pricing structure for digital communications inhibits entry by individuals and small business as well as by non-profit institutions such as schools. The establishment of thresholds for entry into the service as a provider of information, rather than a consumer, is also inconsistent with any normative view of networking as a public technology. The concept that super organizations can be created that pool resources for smaller organizations is just another mechanism for perpetuating the inequality by introducing additional levels of bureaucracy, administration, and associated costs.
Predictor: Hiltz, Starr Roxanne
Prediction, in context:In a 1992 paper they presented at a workshop titled “Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities” for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, researchers Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff say: ”The cost of communicating information in networks is more or less a linear function of the amount of information. When we publish information in a physical form such as a book, there are considerable economies of scale. It would cost almost as much to produce a 10-page book as a 100-page book. Also, producing thousands of books makes a single book considerably cheaper than producing say 10 books. Consequently, we have a publishing or information industry that is based upon volume publishing. In a digital environment the cost of conveying a single recipe is roughly 1/100 of the cost of conveying a book of 100 recipes. This presents a tremendous opportunity for a demand flow of selective information and an information industry that is based upon relatively different economic principles. An obvious consequence is that volume discounts are inherently unfair because they give organizations an advantage based upon their size. As a result, the current pricing structure for digital communications inhibits entry by individuals and small business as well as by non-profit institutions such as schools. The establishment of thresholds for entry into the service as a provider of information, rather than a consumer, is also inconsistent with any normative view of networking as a public technology. The concept that super organizations can be created that pool resources for smaller organizations is just another mechanism for perpetuating the inequality by introducing additional levels of bureaucracy, administration, and associated costs. Since the first introduction of commercial digital network services, the actual dollar cost per service unit as priced to an individual has remained about the same (less of course when corrected for inflation). The cost of communications has not fallen as fast as the cost of processing information, nor reflected the claims made for future pricing when services such as Telenet were first introduced.”
Biography:Starr Roxanne Hiltz, the co-author of a seminal book about the electronic frontier, “The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer” (MIT Press), was a professor of computer and information science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of many Internet research studies. In 1994, Hiltz received the “Pioneer Award” from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her “significant and influential contributions to computer-based communications and to the empowerment of individuals using computers.” She was among the first to note that computer conferencing could form the basis of new kinds of communities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: November 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities Computer science and Telecommunications Board National Research Council (NRC)
Title, headline, chapter name: A Normative View of Networking Applications
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/dcgov.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney