Re: cause for concern... Good Weekend letter

daedalus (daedalus@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au)
Mon, 18 Dec 1995 08:25:36 +1100 (EST)

On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, Steven Blunt wrote:

> On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, Bradley Hughes wrote:
>
> > The sooner we go to situations where every house is linked the better.
> > Thanks to Bill Gates for the technology and thanks for the insight."
>
> Now I don't like Bill Gates or anything, but he has done a lot to get
> computers out of the office and into the homes of everyday people (all
> for his own gain of course, but he is a buisnessman). I don't think
> this guy was saying Bill invented the internet, but he has made the idea
> of every home being connected more of a reality

I wouldn't be so sure. The Internet is a big mystery to those who
aren't on it, and the popular media aren't helping with their usual hype
about it, much of it misleading or downright wrong. This is the only
contact those not on the net have with anything Internet, and
unfortunatly (IMHO) Micro$oft are particularly prominant in popular media.
It is statements like the above one which indicate to me how
little people really know about the net. Everyone is jumping on the
internet bandwagon and a lot of the jumpers have little or no idea. There
is a lot of money to be made out of the internet, or at least, that is
their belief, and it is very easy to impress people who know nothing if
you know only a little.
The newness of it all (to newbies at least) and the mystery
intrigue them, and any information about the net is swallowed up, hence
the ludicrous comments people make constantly, which those who know
instantly dismiss. It is those who don't who are a worry.
The idea of an info campaign about the internet is a novel
suggestion, and I for one would prefer newbies who actually have a clue,
but we were all newbies once. :) I think the biggest benefit of an info
campaign would be to those people who are (attempting perhaps) to
run/regulate/control the internet. It seems that a hell of a lot of these
people know as much as any other ill-informed not-netter. These people
are a greater concern than newbies who just have the wrong idea.
I mean, does it really matter that a lot of (mostly) harmless
people have the wrong idea? I mean, i'd rather have lots of people who
can accept that they don't know much about the internet than lots of
people who _think_ they know a lot about the internet. But maybe that's
just me being a rampant elitist ;)

>
> BTW someone told me the other day that America On-Line OWNED the
> internet, now that's scary.

I tend to laugh at such people, since that sort of thinking isn't
going to get them very far. Unless someone has examples where stuff like
this is potentially harmful to the internet or its denizens then I will
probably continue to chuckle away. :)

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daedalus
director - eigenmagic
daedalus@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~daedalus
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