POLL: Is The Internet A Fad?

Thats the question! Is the Internet a passing fad, or something that has yet to gain its full potential?

I speak to people everyday who are mainstream and they say that they have ZERO interest in the Net.

I don't agree with them, but thats not the point. The thing that I am seeing is that people are tired of the Internet, and they are ignoring it. It blew up a huge bubble early on, but as with most things that are highly inflated, it has had too much exposure, and people have grown tired of it. , or so it seems.

Of course, government and industry would like to force the net on Americans, and for many reasons which I won't go into at this time, so there are forces that are trying to make the Net just another aspect of life, but that effort seems to have failed. People seem to be losing interest in the Internet.

Why is this happening. As I mentioned, the Net came on like any other fad, and that turns off a lot of people. But, aside from that, there are two absolutely huge problems with the Net:

Content is very lacking on the net. Yes, there are many reference materials here, and if you're doing homework, this is the place to hang, but real, serious content that has broad appeal is not here. And, what is here is dying by the day.

Access speed is horrible! Most people are using 56k dial-up accounts. How can you rapidly access great content, even if it were here, using a 56k modem? What junk! So, even if great content were here, it would take you forever at pull it down to your machine, and many people do not want to sit and wait for your page to load!

But, if you're willing to PAY big bucks, you can get high speed access from your cable provider, or DSl from your phone company, and there are a few wireless alternatives out there, but be ready to pay through the nose for mere Net access.

All of these are contributing to the demise of the Net, or to it becoming little more than a passing fad left to nerds, school kids, and government spooks.

" I am in the car business, and the net serves as just another way to advertise. I get fewer and fewer actual buyers from my investment in net-tech. www.villagemotors.com"

I think it overreached a little, like the stock market. Internet users are becoming more sophisticated and demanding more. You have some nice things on there, but a web site listing 20 cars in a local market is tough to attract people to.

Just an idea,...If you could get 20 other local used car dealers to commit to listing their inventory, I think it would be very attractive. Someone like myself could probably build you a simple application for a few hundred dollars that each of them could run on their PCs to keep their listings current on a site such as yours.

I don't think you understand what the Internet is. None of the "huge problems with the net" you list are actually problems with the Internet. They're problems with the paradigm of "Internet as all things to all people."

What the Internet truly is is simply a way to connect separate networks and systems using a universal standard. That way you don't have to uniquely figure out how to connect to individual networks and systems. Plug into the Internet, and you can get to them all. That is certainly not a fad, and it is certainly not going away. The way it is used will undoubtedly evolve over time, but that's quite different than a passing fad.

"The thing that I am seeing is that people are tired of the Internet, and they are ignoring it. It blew up a huge bubble early on, but as with most things that are highly inflated, it has had too much exposure, and people have grown tired of it, or so it seems."

SamBees, don't rely on anecdotal evidence. Look at the statistics:http://www.glreach.com/globstats/

American and worldwide Internet usage is growing every year.

The Internet is evolving - and one day, it will be ubiquitous, as common in the home and elsewhere as electric motors are common in the home and eleswhere.

Indeed, the electric motor is a good model for the evolution of the Internet. Originally, the electric motor replaced the steam engine in manufacturing, and it was big, bulky and turned a rotating shaft often positioned vertically, upon which pulleys and levers were fastened to do multiple tasks. When electric motors became small enough to fit into tools themselves, the need to manufacture vertically (a factory of several stories) was eliminated, and people like Henry Ford started manufacturing horizontally - the assembly line.

Today, the average home has 30 plus motors of varing sizes in it, each performing separate tasks, all running off the electrictity brought to the house.

The Internet will blossom into a multiple decentralized functions - use will not depend upon sitting at one central computer and logging in everyday. For most people, it will be on and stay on, and accessible from any location. The content will be both free and by subscription.

Moreover, content follows form, not vice-versa. Obviously, cheap broadband - sufficient to show digital movies well - is a key. But also, I think, there must be a revolution in the display itself. We need cheap, large flat screens.

For example, digital photos are wonderful and more 'alive' than merely printed copies, and yet for most of us, digital photos can only be displayed on computer monitor. Why couldn't there be cheap wall or desk "picture frames" which could display digitial photos well - and sequence them on command? We need a wall to ceiling display - at a reasonable price - like the wall in the kitchen in the movie "True Lies".

Patience, SamBees. All this is coming. And the real Internet fortunes, which will come about through realization of these obvious progressions, are yet to be made.

We are evolving into a world in which we will be able to be in instant communication visually, in sound and in print with all others on the planet and with most sources of information. Whether we have anything meaningful to communicate is a different matter, of course.

i gotta point out that you are asking this question to a bunch of people who probably spend half their day on the internet doing stuff (hopefully) useful and monitoring the free republic. i hope you did not have in mind being a statistician in a future life...unless you want to work for the democrats.

sorry for the blast. since you asked, the internet is interactive. content is not there and bandwith is such that it is difficult to get bandwidth. cable and tv is where most people are still comfortable after a hard day at the (ahem) office. it has content and bandwith to support it. further, it requires next to no thinking -- it is passive.

i do not see the two merging anytime soon. i do see the internet as an untapped tool, but to enhance interactive communication, not to replace passivity.

3G is an aspect that could foster more interactive usage. phones that access the internet are technically feasible and their is some interest by the general public -- europe is far ahead the united states in this area. unfortunately network providers have paid outrageous fees for licenses and have little left to build their infrastructure.

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