
Bad predictions about the internet - prismatic
http://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2016/08/25-years-here-are-worst-ever-predictions-about-internet
======
Animats
I had a Minitel account in the 1980s. France Telecom rolled out Minitel in the
US, although almost nobody noticed. Minitel had much of the functionality of
the Web in a primitive form. There were online stores which accepted credit
cards. Traffic maps of Paris. News and chat. Phone directories. Text porn.
Social and dating sites. (One had to be able to write good poetry in French to
get noticed.) Even paid sex chat ("tenderness service"). Most of the
functionality of the Web was there, except images and video.

Minitel was a pay service; almost everything cost. The big surprise on the Web
was that ads alone would pay for so much and that bandwidth would become so
cheap.

~~~
cantrevealname
> The big surprise on the Web was that ads alone would pay for so much

Another huge surprise was that people would create so much content (including
really good content) for free. Can you imagine telling someone 15 years ago
that the Web would have a free repository of all human knowledge, in hundreds
of languages, thousands of times bigger than Encyclopedia Britannica, that was
created by random people and experts around the world almost entirely _without
payment_.

Of course I'm talking about Wikipedia above, but that's just one of thousands
of outstanding Web resources that people created for free.

I can just imagine the people's reactions 15 years ago: Why would anyone do
that for free? Wouldn't the government shut it down? Who would pay to run the
servers? Anything anyone would write for free would be garbage. You might get
a few random people to write, but no subject-matter expert is going to waste
their time.

~~~
dingaling
> Can you imagine telling someone 15 years ago that the Web would have a free
> repository of all human knowledge

Wikipedia is far, far short of the total of 'all human knowledge'. It's
probably a good primer for the _type_ of information that consitutes such
knowledge but it's barely skin-deep.

Even the British Library, for all its faults, holds magnitudes more
information; it adds three million items every year, which is half as many as
Wikipedia has _total_ articles.

~~~
derefr
_Words_ , surely; information, I'm not as sure about. I would wonder how much
content an entire library truly holds if you were to try to abridge all its
books together into one tome with every redundant statement stripped out, such
that each fact or idea was only elucidated once, in one way.

~~~
CJefferson
I can pick a couple of mathematics books off my shelf, where less than 5% of
their content is on wikipedia -- wikipedia is good for topics which many
people understand, but in my experience gets very bad for more difficult
topics. This partly makes sense, they are difficult to write about, and
difficult to read without being an expert so is wikipedia even the right
place?

~~~
dTal
In my perfect fantasy world Wikipedia articles would be so well-written that
as you delved further into a niche field, they seamlessly segue into textbook
chapters.

------
scrollaway
"In fact, the web is so pivotal to modern life that two months ago, the UN
declared internet access a basic human right."

This doesn't sit right with me. It's certainly not being treated as one. I
keep encountering "free wifi" hotspots - unencrypted, slow networks asking you
to get your credit card out for more than 5 minutes of their time.

I was just in germany last week. In a public airport, the wifi was so
monetized I felt like I was in the iOS port of a facebook game. Had the choice
between that, or some even worse sitekiosk locked down piece of crap.

I wonder when this will change. When wifi will be as abundant and accessible
as water in a city. (Although Germany is a terrible example for this - good
luck getting a glass of tap water there). It's funny-sad to contrast the
wonders of the internet, to the unending shithole that is internet _access_ in
2016.

~~~
NhanH
You overestimate how the "basic human right" is treated.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has 30 articles, almost every single
one was and is being trampled on everyday.

~~~
mseebach
Well, an alternative (and more charitable) reading is that these are negative
rights.

Having the right to internet doesn't mean that someone else has a duty to
provide you with a (free) internet connection, it means that forcibly
preventing you from procuring an internet connection is not allowed (as
opposed to, say, drugs, which you CAN be forcibly prevented from procuring).

Compare freedom of expression: Nobody can forcibly prevent you from expressing
yourself, but also, nobody has a duty to enable you to express yourself.

~~~
emodendroket
It doesn't seem to be constituted that way according to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access)

------
derekp7
I've often wondered how much the Web as we know it depends on the current
level of technology (bandwidth, resolution, processing speed, storage), vs how
much it depends on the fact that it has a critical mass of people using it?
Sure, sites such as Youtube would have a hard time over a 28.8k modem (not to
mention low resolution/low color displays and slow CPUs). But things like
Facebook or other community sites could still essentially exist and perform
most of their function.

Or is it that without current bandwidth, that even basic items (such as
sharing low resolution pictures) would limit it to those who have enough
patience? And how much of the ability to design modern web app interfaces is
responsible for drawing in the masses? Is the eye candy what actually sells
the net to the average person (in order to obtain critical mass)?

~~~
chrismcb
Usenet and bbses existed for years. But something like Facebook would not have
received critical mass with video and pics. Of course suicidal media on
general wouldn't have gotten critical mass without a smart phone.

~~~
kbenson
> suicidal media

Now _there 's_ an interesting typo. (Or was that intentional?) Strangely
fitting, even.

------
castell
Another interesting prediction was Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead" (1995) book.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_(Bill_Gates_boo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_\(Bill_Gates_book\))

The Microsoft Network (MSN v1, MSN dialup) failed spectacularly and the WWW
won, Bill Gates rewrote the whole book in less than a year, the paperback
edition already featured the WWW instead of Information Super Highway and
MSN/Microsoft Network. Windows 95 shipped with MSN integration, an addon
"Plus" CD shipped Internet Explorer 1.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-
up#Early_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-up#Early_history)

------
ultramancool
I actually think the CBC guy has some validity still. Certainly civility falls
apart quickly in large groups like Reddit or Twitter where most interactions
are one-offs, but in small ones (irc channels and forums), even where there
are major political disagreements I've seen surprisingly good handling. Even
the worst of those horrible terrible trolls/harassers/cyberbullies/<other
bullshit here> often has somewhere they're more accepted and accepting.

------
wpietri
Those fond of the genre should pick up a copy of Laura Lee's "Bad
Predictions", a great compendium of all sorts of now-foolish statements:
[https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Predictions-Laura-
Lee/dp/09657345...](https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Predictions-Laura-
Lee/dp/0965734595)

------
zbyszek
The author says "the least likely element of this scenario is that Kellogg's
will bring back free gifts". I have at home a bunch of squashy balls, eagerly
sought by my son, from Kellog's Frosties from the time of Six Nations Rugby
tournament this year. Does she know something I don't?

------
tedunangst
Counterpoint to Stoll being wrong:
[http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-actually-
th...](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-actually-that-
offbase-20150227-column.html)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Yeah, every time someone trots out that article, I think that he was wrong
about a lot of details and right about a lot of the broad implications.

~~~
davidiach
Wasn't his broad implication that the internet was massively overrated and not
really that big of a deal?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
He was wrong about a lot of the specific business applications, mainly because
the problems he cited were all things that could be (and were) engineered
around once there was enough profit to be made. He was right about most of the
social/utopian applications; educational software, government websites, and
social networks are all useful tools and have been more financially successful
than he predicted, but they have never revolutionized education or government,
nor given us something better than face-to-face contact, as we were promised.

------
williamgb
I think the author is being quite unfair regarding John Allen's "prediction"
on anonymity.

First and foremost, it wasn't even a prediction. Second, his comments
concerned anonymity within groups and communities, not general demographics,
i.e. all users of Twitter. The referenced study linked to by the Guardian
(statistically illiterate as ever) article also fails to demonstrate anonymity
as a primary cause of abuse, as the author seems to imply, albeit in a
passive-aggressive manner.

------
vacri
Well, it's still true that CD-ROMs [or rather, 'digital lessons'] actually
don't take the place of a competent teacher. Some autodidacts can go very far
with digital materials, but for Jane and John Q Public, teachers are better
than digital lessons. They're just more expensive, is all.

Plus, of course, there are particular topics that are much better suited for
one style or the other, but in general, a competent meat teacher is better
than a competent silicon one.

~~~
keithwhor
"a competent meat teacher is better than a competent silicon one"

... for now, and even then I'm not so sure.

Edit: And what about a competent teacher that records one lesson and
broadcasts it to millions?

~~~
vacri
Teaching is a two-way communication - a good teacher can pick up on how well
the student is doing, and raise or lower the pitch of the lesson to match, or
observe simple (or complex) misconceptions early[1]. A digital broadcast can't
do that. In theory, we can get AI that can dynamically adapt to their
students, but we're a very long way from that.

[1]A simple example - I self-taught myself guitar using online resources. I
wasn't great, but I seemed to be doing what all the various resources were
saying to do. Eventually I got tired of always being terrible, and shelled out
for a teacher. In the first couple of weeks, he had fixed half-a-dozen tiny
issues with my technique, which added up to make a terrible cacophony. I'd
never be able to do that with the online resources.

Another example, from when I was a practical class demonstrator for a biology-
based class in the '90s. There was a hue and cry about how all lessons of the
future would be digital and no more lab animals would have to die (toads, for
us). I countered with "how are you going to have a video show you how it feels
to tie a ligature too loose or too tight?". Likewise, David Attenborough's
documentaries are sterling, but they're not as good as going to the place and
experiencing it in person.

Physical skills like the above are clear examples, but even for a standard
lecture, human beats video-of-human - how many of us have been in a lecture
when someone asks a 'stupid question' that clears up a misconception for
everyone?

Good digital lessons are great for scale, but a good meat-based teacher is
better. Of course, bad versions of either can be downright destructive...

------
rocky1138
I think this author is confused between what the Internet is and what the WWW
is.

------
grecy
Slightly related, I think it's a foregone conclusion that in 25 years we'll
poke fun in the same way at current thinking about electric cars, self driving
cars, solar power, etc.

------
emodendroket
Give Clifford Stoll _some_ credit; his predictions about low quality online
discussions and questionable value in educational software have some merit.

------
80801
Couldn't read it. Website wanted me to disable malware protection in my
browser.

