Last Updated 5/19/2003 by dickdiamond.com

5/19/2003

Silicon Snakeoil 3.0

Stuff like this is why I maintain that Nicolas Negroponte is always wrong.

"WiFi is like flower boxes." Yeah, if you happen to be stealing the flowers from some of the largest and most powerful corporations on a daily basis. The only reason "there's no incremental cost" to share your home or business WiFi with the world (or a 100-meter radius of it), and in fact the only reason you're tempted to do it, is low-end broadband Internet access comes at a flat fee in this country. But that flat fee is predicated on fractional bandwidth utilization, and the extra bandwidth utilized by sharing most certainly does incur an incremental cost up the line somewhere. And that somewhere is most likely an entity with stockholders and a very strong interest in cutting incremental costs and making a profit.

Why is no one stating the obvious: that free WiFi Internet sharing in a loophole that huge interests are working to close? I truly do not understand how people can be so naive about this.

It's also probably important to understand that, in the context of any discussion like this, "no economic model to support..." is a modern-day code phrase for "communism." And implies about as much sympathy and tolerance for the cause.

So WiFi sharers beware: from AOL-Time Warner, Inc. to The Department of Homeland Security, you're rapidly showing up on everybody's hit list.

5/13/2003

The Uncompromising Liberal Media

You know things are bad when you hear a phrase like "uncompromising liberal media" and you start to wonder if maybe you're supposed to be handling that. Because very few others are.

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