And, if it is not clear who owns what in digitized hyperspace, it is also not clear, beyond the sale of hardware, just where the profits are … If telephony and cable put a lock on the hard-wiring, watch for pirate satellite ships.
One can only speculate about the possibility of regulation to prevent abusive behavior, as has been attempted in the case of the telephone system.
Unless you know what you are really doing, the Internet is a great waste of time … The Internet is good for person-to-person communications but for those doing “commercial business” it [will] take off only very slowly.
Telecommunications – and computers – will continue to drive change … In telecommunications, we are moving to a single worldwide information network, just as economically we are becoming one global marketplace. We are moving toward the capability to communicate anything to anyone, anywhere, by any form – voice, data, text or image – at the speed of light.
If the politics of virtuality means democracy online and apathy offline, there is reason for concern.
Although it provides us with no easy answers, life online does provide new lenses through which to examine current complexities. Unless we take advantage of these new lenses and carefully analyze our situation, we shall cede the future to those who want to believe that simple fixes can solve complicated problems. Given the history of the last century, thoughts of such a future are hardly inspiring.
The New York Times described new books on the subject by dividing them into three categories: utopian, utilitarian, and apocalyptic. Utilitarian writers emphasize the practical side of the new way of life. Apocalyptic writers warn us of increasing social and personal fragmentation, more widespread surveillance, and loss of direct knowledge of the world. To date, however, the utopian approaches have dominated the field. They share the techological optimism that has dominated post-war culture … In our current situation, technological optimism tends to represent urban decay, social alienation, and economic polarization as out-of-date formulations of a problem that could be solved if appropriate technology were applied in sufficient doses, for example, technology that would link everyone to the “information superhighway.”
The bloom is off the road … I don’t think it ever was blossoming … It’s promoted in a way that’s bogus: That it’s a virtual community, that it’s good for business, that it’s good for society, that it’s good for education. Within each one is a grain of truth, but not a beachful of truth … We’ve been sold a bill of goods: that it’s better to have a virtual experience, an experience via computer, rather than a real experience of walking among the trees. I think it’s real worrisome.
The people who are now making the Net revolution happen are pretty public-spirited characters who want the best for the world, and the feeling is that as you get this really significant power to practically everybody, that’s good for everybody in the long run.
You’ll be able to see “Terminator 2” at any time of the day or night … I don’t know that the world is going to be greatly changed [for the better by this opportunity].