Re: Your Problems/Concern About the Future? (Internet)

"Joe Beaven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I'm just getting started creating a new product and would be grateful
> for your views on something. I think this question will also make a
> great discussion point. Anyway, here it is:
>
> Please could you tell me what you think are your top 3 current
> problems in, or concerns about the future of, Internet marketing?

I was thinking about your post as I was driving last night. These may not be
the biggest concerns, but I've already written them out.

#1: historical preservation

It seems that every few years a new storage technology comes out, and every
few years an old storage technology goes down the tubes. 8" disks, 5.25"
disks, 3.5" disks -- none of these things are manufactured any more and if
you have one of these old disks, such as an 8" or 5.25" floppy, good luck
finding one of those old drives to read the data, IF the data itself is
still viable. (There are many examples. BETA format VCR tapes, STX hard
drives, etc.)

Another issue, of course, is the data lost from server crashes, or even
information that people put up on the Internet and then take down later on.
>From a day to day perspective to most people, this really doesn't mean much.
But from the perspective of the preservation of history such as genealogical
records, and for the need to dig up old data for purposes such as fixing old
products, I think this is a valid concern. ("Oh my G-D!! I just got a 404 on
the Reactor Schematics!)

#2 Rapid obsolescence. Face it, nothing lasts forever. If the net isn't gone
in twenty years it will be gone in ten. What could replace the net? Mass
personal storage. I remember the first 5 MEG hard drives. Now, I'm pretty
sure that Terra Byte hard drives are just around the corner. In twenty
years, the storage space in your computer has increased by a factor of 1800.
And guess what -- the rate of growth has been exponential, not linear!
People go on and on about how computers have increased in speed, but that
speed has increased only by a factor of 200 over the same period of time,
and the speed increase is linear.

In other words, in ten years, the Internet will probably fit on a storage
device that is small enough to hang on your keychain. That WILL happen, the
question is, how fast? A lot of businesses depend on the Internet being the
way it is, quite heavily. An explosion in technology could obsolete the
Internet much faster than industry could respond.

#3 Regulation and/or control. There are two big brothers: the government and
big business. Frankly, the latter is more of a concern to me. Anyway, should
the Internet be commandeered by, say, republicans, what will happen to the
little guys? I'm pretty sure that the Wall Marts and Home Depots of the
world would cough up some significant campaign contributions if the
government decided to tax the shit out of all the little mom-and-pop
businesses on the Internet.

Mark my words!!! There is only a 99.99999% chance that my predictions will
never come to be. Are you willing to take that risk?


Mike