The Internet’s incredibly low cost of distribution almost assures that it will remain free of advertising-based commerce. Nonetheless, if lobbying by network idealists succeeds in derailing or co-opting efforts to build an advertising-based Internetwork, then surely commercial interests will conspire with government officials to destroy or perhaps worse, to take over the Internet by political and economic means.
Predictor: Arnett, Nick
Prediction, in context:Nick Arnett wrote the following in a 1994 online essay: ”The Internet’s incredibly low cost of distribution almost assures that it will remain free of advertising-based commerce. Nonetheless, if lobbying by network idealists succeeds in derailing or co-opting efforts to build an advertising-based Internetwork, then surely commercial interests will conspire with government officials to destroy or perhaps worse, to take over the Internet by political and economic means.”
Biography:Nick Arnett was president of Multimedia Computing Corp., the leading market research and consulting firm tracking multimedia technologies and markets, from 1988 through August of 1994. He later became the World-Wide Web product manager at Verity Inc. Earlier in the 1980s, he was a journalist with publications including InfoWorld and American City Business Journals. He was author of “The Internet and the Anti-net: Two Public Internetworks are Better than One.” (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Government
Name of publication: Essay
Title, headline, chapter name: The Internet and the Anti-Net
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/archives/WWW-TALK/www-talk-1994q3/0331.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Beckett, Angela