The users of a networking service should have all the facilities to perform as information providers … Given a true free-enterprise structure with no economic inhibitions to entry, the information industry in this country could become a major cottage industry … Even though the economics of distribution in a digital communications network are largely insensitive to economies of scale, the market mechanisms offered by service providers practically prevent individual entry into the marketing of information. This is a classic example of how our traditional understandings of the publication process are completely at odds with the opportunities offered by digital communications.
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 users of a networking service should have all the facilities to perform as information providers. Service Providers are potentially very small businesses and/or cottage industries. Service Providers provide communication structures, information organization and retrieval, and formatting. Receivers can tailor what they want to obtain and how they want it to look. Given a true free-enterprise structure with no economic inhibitions to entry, the information industry in this country could become a major cottage industry. Most of the commercial ventures that have offered digital communications to the public have assumed that the model underlying this service will be the same publishing model that reflects our current publications industry. There is a separation in the mental model of those in the industry between the public as consumers of information and organizations as the ‘information providers.’ As a result, one must be a large organization, able to make significant capital investments, to be able to offer information and receive revenue from the users who utilize the information. There is no mechanism provided whereby a single user can market a single item of information (e.g., a poem, a recipe, a short story, a news article, etc.) and make choices about charges for that item. In sum, even though the economics of distribution in a digital communications network are largely insensitive to economies of scale, the market mechanisms offered by service providers practically prevent individual entry into the marketing of information. This is a classic example of how our traditional understandings of the publication process are completely at odds with the opportunities offered by digital communications.”
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: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
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