Computers might permanently shift the relative payoffs between manufacturing and the process of search and discovery. If that’s correct, then the whole economy will start to look like Microsoft, with a very large fraction of people engaged in discovery as opposed to production. This implies a permanent change in the rate of discovery and the rate of economic growth … Things might never settle back down.
The players most likely to shape this future will be the ones who shaped it a decade ago – small upstarts able to see the world in entirely new ways.
The Net is something entirely new, and its effects on democratic politics can’t be predicted using historical precedent. The Internet threatens the government (unmonitorable conversations), mocks private property (the infinite reproducibility of information), and flaunts moral propriety (the dissemination of pornography). The technology of the Internet shouldn’t be viewed as a new form of public sphere. The challenge is to understand how the networked future might be different from what we have known.
A couple would buy a Swatch watch. And a couple would go eat some shrimp. And Carnival became a multibillion-dollar company. We have the opportunity to become the Carnival Cruise Lines of this environment.
Remember AOL’s erstwhile partner Commodore? Ten years ago, it was the largest home PC company in the United States; today, it’s the answer to a trivia question. Will AOL be able to avoid a similar fate? Can it withstand the Microsoft juggernaut? Will its strategy of co-opting the Internet work?
When you look ahead 10 years from now, probably most of our subscribers will be connecting to us several times a day, from several different locations, with several different access devices, on several different communications devices. It will become part of their life.
AOL is working to incorporate CD-ROM technology into the online experience. The idea is that bandwidth-clogging graphics and other basic components will be contained on discs at home, with users getting updated information when they sign on.
If modern society may be said to foster an individual who is rational, autonomous, centered and stable … then perhaps a postmodern society is emerging which nurtures forms of identity different from, even opposite to those of modernity. And electronic communications technologies significantly enhance these postmodern possibilities.
We think we can build a big franchise and get into tens of millions of homes as an interactive service company, as opposed to an online service provider. Content is no longer king. Rather, building communities around that content is the key.
Whether AOL’s attempt to co-opt the Internet will pay off remains to be seen. In the meantime, the company is determined to make hay while its new competitors find their footing. The plan: diversify the revenue stream by bringing more commerce and advertising to the AOL community while luring millions of new users through investments in multimedia technology and innovative content.