Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana ☀
Curmudgeonly essay on “Why the Internet Will Fail” from 1995
Clifford Stoll is taking generous servings of humble pie for the referenced 1995 Newsweek article titled “Why the Internet Will Fail” (though re-titled from “The Internet? Bah!: Why cyberspace isn’t and will never be, nirvana).
Stoll actually responded with a comment, acknowledging that his piece was indeed a “howler”.
Of my many mistakes, flubs, and howlers, few have been as public as my 1995 howler.
Wrong? Yep.At the time, I was trying to speak against the tide of futuristic commentary on how The Internet Will Solve Our Problems.
Gives me pause. Most of my screwups have had limited publicity: Forgetting my lines in my 4th grade play. Misidentifying a Gilbert and Sullivan song while suddenly drafted to fill in as announcer on a classical radio station. Wasting a week hunting for planets interior to Mercury’s orbit using an infrared system with a noise level so high that it couldn’t possibly detect ‘em. Heck - trying to dry my sneakers in a microwave oven (a quarter century later, there’s still a smudge on the kitchen ceiling)And, as I’ve laughed at others’ foibles, I think back to some of my own cringeworthy contributions.
Stoll not only penned an article, but wrote an entire book, Silicon Snake Oil, pronouncing the same theme. That the internet isn’t a magical vessel that will solve all our problems as many heralded.
It’s hard for someone in the center of technology (see The Cuckoo’s Egg, for background on Stoll, an old school hacker), sometimes, to forecast the future flow of technology. For another example, I remember reading this interview with a notable OS X/Objective C (and former NextStep developer/trainer) instructor and chortling because I held the same wrongheaded sentiment as him:
But, you shouldn’t trust my predictions, when I saw the first web browser in 1992 (it only ran on NeXT computers), I said, “This is just dumb. It is like FTP, but I can only get one file at a time. Why would anyone want to use this…what did you call it?…’World Wide Web’?”
But as silly as some of Stoll’s rantings turned out to be, he wasn’t totally off the mark, and more than a few criticisms levied in 1995 still are spot in, circa 2010. Within the boingboing comment thread, there is a poster defense fisking of the Newsweek article that scores some points for Stoll. And as another commenter pointed out, Stoll’s Silicon Snake Oil book fleshes out his argument in a little better light.
Well, here’s a checklist of Stoll’s 1995 gripes about internet visionaries, with my two pieces of copper chucked for consideration:
- Online commerce. Stoll totally missed this one. While it has (and will never completely supplant brick & mortar) not eclipsed physical financial transactions, it’s just a matter of time.
- Networks and democracy. Not certain on this call — rise of the internet mob, small shifts in transparency (to date), and governments armed with greater surveillance tool than liberator device for the people.
- Myopia of tech pundits. Oh yes. One word. Techcrunch. One name. John C. Dvorak.
- Online education. Here, in my estimation, Stoll laid out his best case — substitution of computing technology and parasitical marketing and tech interlocutors usurping true learning. And honestly, the failure here, is the crippling factor when we dialogue about changing and reforming government.
- Cacophony of everyman publishing. No. Stoll’s perspective was an elitist one. I, for one, welcome our new Tumblr overlords. ;)
- Electronic publishing. Uh, 15 years later, and really not significantly closer to Al Gore’s early 90’s dream (as expressed in Silicon Snake Oil) of the entire Library of Congress content available via a keystroke (or click or touch). A small slice of digerati are keen on their Kindles, a few authors post their work for free online, and Project Gutenburg provides the classics, but for the most part, this projection remains unfulfilled.
- Search. Sorry, it’s still a large problem. For a few years, it looked like Google had the handle on it, and as a result of its effort, crushed the competition. But my take, now, is that it’s becoming as bad as it was back in the Alta Vista days. Due to microblogging, social networking, affiliate marketing, explosion of splogs, etc.… conducting a search for relevance can make for a frustrating exercise. And the problem is compounded by the nature of Google itself — it’s an ad company, not a search company. Not at least anymore. Its competitors are still playing catchup in the space.
- Cybersex. Um, Stoll definitely missed the boat here.
- Reality v. virtual reality. True, virtual fellowship is nowhere rich as actual human contact. But technology doesn’t stand still. The broadband connected multi-monitor setups with greater resolution of today grant an improved online involvement over that dialup 640x480 1995 experience. Video and audio provide a richer communication experience than plain text. Some years hence, the internet can be experienced in holographic form. Or maybe it already is, as avatars in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG).
