Newsweek in 1995: Why the Internet will Fail.
An infamous Newsweek article dating back to 1995 titled “The Internet? Bah!” .
There are a number of quotes that will leave you grinning proudly about how wrong author
Clifford Stoll
was, but before we criticise, let’s accept this is 1995. The Internet was
a mess. No Google. No method to the madness. It’s understandable how
many may have believed there wasn’t something in this Internet thing.
Then again, this author really should have known better, Clifford Stoll
is a US astronomer and author, you would expect someone of his
technological background to have you a more inspired vision of the
future. You can read more about him here
and watch a mad (and I mean mad) TED presentation of his here.
You can read the article below. My favorite parts are highlighted in red.
The Internet? Bah!
Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana
After
two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of
a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a
hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold
community.
Visionaries
see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and
multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and
virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and
malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will
make government more democratic.Baloney.
Do our computer pundits lack all common sense?
The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no
CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network
will change the way government works.
Consider
today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows
anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out,
leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply
and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more
closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles,
harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few
listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At
best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer
replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to
the beach. Yet
Nicholas
Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy
books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.
What
the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is tht the Internet is one big
ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking
editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of
unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading.
Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of
Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel
them–one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a
computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London
monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically
interrupted by messages like, “Too many connectios, try again later.”
Won’t
the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for
government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in
Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper
onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer
companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.
Point
and click:Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re
told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will
happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored
software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education?
Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require
extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames–but think of
your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of
decades past? I’ll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who
made a difference in your life.
Then
there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just
point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the
network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts.
Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more
business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?
Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the
Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential
ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.
What’s
missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the
fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks
isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute
for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes
close to the excitement of a live concert. And who’d prefer cybersex to
the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively
flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to
surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual
reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of
Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are
relentlessly devalued.
Update:
Boing Boing
has also run with this story and the man himself has commented. His words:
“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.
Now, whenever I think I know what’s happening, I temper my thoughts: Might be wrong, Cliff…
Warm cheers to all,
-Cliff Stoll on a rainy Friday afternoon in Oakland”
(Editor's Note: Even when he is supposed to be acknowledging error this fraud is full of hubris. Note that he calls writing an article and a book filled with incorrect predictions he tries to pass the vast effort off as a 'howler.' He did not make one off hand remark that turned out wrong - he wrote volumes. His 'apology' gives three other examples of when he was 'wrong' that somehow come off as bragging about how accomplished this self-promoter is. What is at the basis of this 'scientist's' critique of the internet is an anti-technology world view. A man who spent one year as a middle school teacher thinks we need more middle school teachers. But, he's not going to do it. He'd rather pontificate. Even when he is so obviously wrong, he sees himself as right, in spirit. )
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(Editor's Note: Even when he is supposed to be acknowledging error this fraud is full of hubris. Note that he calls writing an article and a book filled with incorrect predictions he tries to pass the vast effort off as a 'howler.' He did not make one off hand remark that turned out wrong - he wrote volumes. His 'apology' gives three other examples of when he was 'wrong' that somehow come off as bragging about how accomplished this self-promoter is. What is at the basis of this 'scientist's' critique of the internet is an anti-technology world view. A man who spent one year as a middle school teacher thinks we need more middle school teachers. But, he's not going to do it. He'd rather pontificate. Even when he is so obviously wrong, he sees himself as right, in spirit. )
..........
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