“Disconnectivity”).
I worked at Mattel in 1983 when lies the Powell FCC’s focus on multi- It would not be the first time a com-
it fielded a PC based on its Intellivision modal competition. A third scenario, pany offered a freebie to get customers.
video game platform. Its design price was “Structural Separation,” is approached Grocery stores don’t charge for parking.
US$1800. Eighteen months later it hit the in countries where broadband is dens- Gas stations don’t charge for bathroom
stores at $1800. Meanwhile Coleco field- est and fastest; here the low layers of the use. Telcos don’t charge for directories.
ed a similar PC for $900. Whoops! network are heavily regulated to be open Google’s size scares some people. The
We had all heard of Moore’s Law, but and inexpensive, while brutal competit- information it collects scares others. I
this was the first time its consequences ion rages in the network’s upper layers. think these fears are unwarranted as
actually touched our lives. As we digest- There’s a fourth scenario, “Customer long as Google makes good on its pub-
ed the bad news, somebody said, “Holy Owned Networks,” where technology ad- lic pledge, “Don’t Be Evil.” To Google
smoke, if this continues, hardware will be vances so far so fast that it end-runs all CEO Eric Schmidt the pledge means that
more or less free!” attempts at regulation. Technology im- Google should follow newspaper ethics
A second holy-smoke moment fol- provements make it so easy to set up net- by maintaining a clear prohibition ag-
lowed close on the first one’s heels. “How works that customers do it themselves. ainst its advertising side interfering with
does anybody make money on software?” its applications. Schmidt explains, just
we asked. Arguably, only one guy figured Google World as a reporter should ideally write fear-
out the answer to that. The fifth scenario is a free market one in lessly about a bad-acting business even if
Today’s evident technology trends in- which some company figures out how to that business advertises in the reporter’s
dicate that the price for raw Internet make money running a network business paper, so should the Google applications
connectivity might be more or less free. despite (or maybe because of) the fact themselves never discriminate on the ba-
Who will be today’s Microsoft? Perhaps that raw IP connectivity is becoming free. sis of what the advertising side of Google
Google. Google is my candidate. “knows.”
Google has apps like its search engine Like all scenarios, the Google sce-
Five Alternate Scenarios that we can’t live without. Others, like nario may never happen. Blogger Doc
Unlike computers, networks are regulat- Blogger, Gmail, Google News and Google Searls [writer, speaker and technology
ed; regulatory initiatives shape the mar- Maps, we simply use frequently. All of consultant who wrote the runaway best-
ketplace. There are three usefully distinct them are free. Each of them informs its seller, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of
regulatory scenarios for Internet con- personalized advertising business, its Business as Usual] points out that Google
nectivity. In one, “Telco-topia,” market money machine. Google Internet service is now a monoculture, thus a single fail-
entry is limited to duopoly, perhaps aug- could also be free. It, too, would pay its ure could bring it down. Or perhaps its
mented by network access technologies own way by informing G-Ads. G-Net size will make it hard to manage well.
so crippled that they’ll always be also- could tell G-Ads about things only an Or maybe a high-visibility subpoena will
rans, such as Broadband over Powerline ISP would know, like where you are and blow the public’s faith in “Don’t Be Evil.”
and today’s wireless options. In a sec- what you do on the Internet beyond the But the Google scenario is at least as plau-
ond scenario, “New Entry,” regulation Google family. To get good data, Google sible as the other four. V
supports new entrants and holds estab- would have to run an open, application-
lished companies in check; this is the neutral network. G-Net would have an David S. Isenberg is author of “The Rise of
thrust of Rick Whitt and Vint Cerf’s added benefit–it would be a pre-emptive the Stupid Network” and founder of isen.
proposed Horizontal Leap Forward model defense against other Internet operators com, LLC, a decidedly independent telecom
legislation based on layers, and it under- who might try to charge Google for use analysis firm.
References:
Archives