Rants & Raves
"New Rules for the New Economy" (Wired 5.09, page 140) was a treasure for me personally, and it offered top-level strategic guidance for my work. The piece presented powerful new conceptual tools at many levels: philosophical, economic, psychological, and technological. I constantly felt a sense of recognition, but you were usually going a few steps beyond where my thinking had taken me.
"New Rules" is also a great lesson in directness, clarity, and brevity. Yes, brevity. It was a long article, but the ratio of breakthrough insights to time invested was great. I didn't want it to end. I'll reread it many times and have begun to rave about it to others. Congratulations.
Ron Richards
ronr@resultslab.com
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Kevin Kelly's article raised some interesting issues and provided more than a few insights in the attempt to predict the somewhat unpredictable nature of networks. However, his comments on the notion of "free bandwidth" are not supported by technological reality.
In their speculations about the public network, both Kelly and George Gilder seem to have made a common conceptual error. They assume that trends and principles derived from experience in the computer industry can be extrapolated and applied to the telecommunications industry. The exuberant perversity of Moore's Law suggests to them that there must be a similar dynamic in the growth of network infrastructure. But in fact, the telecom industry is far more complex and riddled with intellectual wormholes than the relatively one-dimensional computer industry.
Bandwidth may indeed be growing at a phenomenal rate, but aggregate bandwidth is a poor metric for gauging what's really happening. Cable modems and xDSL (digital subscriber line) may be hot on Wall Street, but they are nowhere to be seen on most subscribers' radar screens. We are moving very slowly toward greater bandwidth in the so-called last mile of public network. Bandwidth may be increasing significantly in the network's backbone portion, but looking at the overall infrastructure provides a far more nuanced view.
Tom Valovic
valovic@world.std.com
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Free Web browsers - Kevin Kelly's example of the Law of Generosity - actually prove how ungenerous this law can be: new versions of browsers are published twice a year, buggy and incompatible to previous releases. For users and Web publishers, the costs of working with flaws often exceed the benefits of the free tool. Kelly writes: "Once the product's worth and indispensability is established, the company sells auxiliary services or upgrades, enabling it to continue its generosity and maintaining this marvelous circle." I will gratefully reject this offer in favor of a bug-free, standardized product in the first place.
Reinhard Schaffner
schaffnr@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
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Nice job on "New Rules." One thing that economists Paul Romer and Brian Arthur do not recognize, however, is the limits of increasing returns. The network economy does not eliminate diminishing returns altogether, but delays their onset. As Kevin Kelly points out, even the red tide died out almost as fast as it showed up. The question for Microsoft and Intel is, "When will the law of diminishing returns kick in?" One answer is, "When they misgauge the next big thing. So far, Microsoft has been unusually adept at reading the 'significance that precedes momentum.'"
Ted Lewis
tedglewis@friction-free-economy.com
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Kelly's rules speak my experience as a physician and board member of a local hospital. I've been trying to say that we need to focus more on quality, technology, lower prices, and networking with outside medical schools, rather than seeking managed care or subordinated relations with hospital groups. The early history of medicine was that of a primitive network or guild of physicians extending back to the Greek learning centers, like nodes on the Net. I believe part of the present trouble comes from the attempt to impose an industrial solution to solve problems of distribution. Insurance, managed physicians, and managed care are creating spiraling administrative costs and insurance-company profits at the expense of quality and service. The medical school is all but lost as a networking node of information and support. That will change, and at a pace something like that which Kelly describes in his article: prices will plummet, information will soar, and administrative burden will be all but eliminated.
Clancy Hughes
hughes@ptialaska.net
"Dawn of the Hydrogen Age" (Wired 5.10, page 138) was big on hydrogen hype but completely missed the point from a scientific standpoint. Hydrogen is not a fuel for generating power in the sense that oil, gas, and uranium are fuels. Hydrogen must be manufactured, and this manufacturing process consumes as much energy as is provided, or more, when the hydrogen is ultimately used. This is the law of the conservation of energy, and it holds true whether the hydrogen powers a fuel cell, an internal combustion engine, or anything else. Hydrogen-based fuel cells are essentially batteries, not power generators.
In all cases, the emission of pollution and greenhouse gases just shifts from the vehicle exhaust to the chimney of the hydrogen-producing power station. I doubt very much that it is more efficient and cleaner to burn fossil fuels to make electricity to then produce hydrogen than it is to simply burn fuel directly in the vehicle.
Peter Webb
peter_webb@msn.com
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What? No mention of nuclear power? That detailed chart on page 145, "The Right Source + The Right Fuel + The Right Engine = Less Pollution," lists every major energy source out there except the black sheep of the energy family. I'm shocked that an otherwise reasonable magazine such as Wired would neglect the one source that may be capable of handling our energy requirements over the inevitably lengthy transition from fossil fuels to the holy trinity of sources: solar, wind, and biomass. Your sidebar debunked the myths concerning the dangers of hydrogen - now how about the larger task of exonerating fission? Other than that, the article was great. My broker's buying Ballard Power Systems as I type.
Jake DeSantis
jake@alum.mit.edu
Robert H. Reid may be a bit too close to the trees to see the future forest of RealVideo. He focuses on how the "Real Revolution" (Wired 5.10, page 122) will allow commercial content providers to blossom on the Web, while only touching on the more likely pointers to RealVideo's future.
Most content providers don't let their audiences talk back. Even paper-based publications like Wired let only a few readers speak in letters to the editor. But the Net's strength is interactivity, and its biggest use is email. This means people want to connect with others more than they want to be entertained. It won't be long before the average PC owner links up with people from around the globe via streaming video and audio. Far from becoming couch potatoes passively watching TV-type content, RealVideo's future users will connect the way people did before the advent of TV - by providing mutually generated content.
Richard Foy
rfoy@netcom.com
In "Reintermediated" (Wired 5.09, page 208), Nicholas Negroponte freaks out on the "bits cost nothing" issue - again. Why does the Web industry think that by calling its client software a browser it has replaced browsing in the atom world? Browsing is the reason for bookstores, wine cellars, singles clubs, and Macy's. (Reality check: Did catalog shopping kill the department store?) Negroponte assumes you can reduce everything to bits and then forgets how lossy these encodings are: they lose the human interaction that makes our lives tick. I can't wait for next month's back page: "Soon traditional meeting places will be replaced by a simple Web site - www.need-some-lovin.com/ - where your perfect match can be found through our innovative affinity software: 'You liked Jane, hated Michelle, loved Betty - you'll adore Rachel.'"
John Graham-Cumming
jgc@jgc.org
Ryan Mathews makes some interesting points ( "The Progressive Grocer," Wired 5.09, page 146), especially that technology allows for a return of intimacy between the grocer and shopper. However, his underlying reasoning - that today's grocery stores do not anticipate individual needs - is flawed. In fact, stores have addressed the individual needs of the majority of their customers ad nauseum. The primary need is the lowest possible price. For most lower- and middle-income Americans, grocery shopping is geared toward price comparison (witness the double manufacturers' coupon campaigns, et cetera). Unfortunately, the best way to offer rock-bottom prices is in a stripped-down, unexciting-but-inexpensive retail warehouse where the objective is volume over margin.
The difference between real and virtual grocery shopping is the socioeconomics of the target customer. Virtual shoppers don't shop primarily by price. They are upper-income professionals with home computers and, most important, not enough time. Online shopping provides the personalized service and time savings that this market is willing and able to pay for.
The difference between real and virtual stores is not based simply on what technology allows, but on what the customer wants and can afford.
Maria LaTour Kadison
mlatour@worldnet.att.net
Neil Postman once said that many aspects of the modern world were being transformed into entertainment. Politics, art, education, athletics, literature, and even religion - all churned into an amusing candy ball wrapped in peanut butter and sold by clowns at a never-ending carnival.
Well, hyuck, hyuck, even "consumer research" seems to be "trending" toward candy-ball status ( "'Please Quote Me on That'," Wired 5.09, page 96). How about more pictures in the next study to help the slower reporters? Perhaps a happy-face mug to the first reporter to call for a quote.
Brian Giffen
bg_giffen@classic.msn.com
What have you been smoking? How can you bash The New York Times for printing misleading Internet articles ( "The Netizen: What Have They Been Smoking?" Wired 5.09, page 53) and then print an article on PC-TV convergence ( "Real Revolution," Wired 5.10, page 122)? I've always trusted Wired as the source of cool things to come, not overblown, half-baked marketing memes like PC TV.
Didn't you learn anything from the interactive-TV experiment? Nobody needs this convergence, nobody is asking for it, and nobody wants it. Face it, PC TV is just a Microsoft marketing plan to find more Windows platforms. The last thing I need is to be rebooting my TV several times a day. Geez, next you'll be telling me that the "network is the computer."
Doug Carter
dougc@canus.com
"(D)Riven" (Wired 5.09, page 120) is not simply a magazine article - it is a piece of literary art. Jon Carroll is magnificent. The piece made me laugh. It made me desperate. It made me hope. It made me see.
For years - since I first encountered Myst - I have spooged all over myself when contemplating the seemingly immortal quality of Cyan. My first crush on a company, an idea, a dream. Anything created by spoken by Cyan was canon.
However, within the past few months I have begun to see a new side of Cyan, one that shows that the creators are people, too. They have conflicts, pressures, and deadlines. They make mistakes. Carroll's article put my vague realizations and thoughts into words; while humorous at times, the piece used a respectful but mournful tone. Perhaps he realized, as I did, that the gods are human after all.
Matthew J. Kelliher
mattkelliher@writeme.com
While I agree that computer games are the first to use many way-new software applications, I have to disagree with Colin Berry's assessment ( "The Bleeding Edge," Wired 5.10, page 90) that online games possess a superior economic model as well. In fact, most game services are stuck firmly in the past with their per-hour charges. There's nothing that ticks me off more then spending an hour downloading a supposedly free game, only to find in the readme file that is costs US$2.75 per hour to play! An advertising-based revenue model would work for online gaming, but unfortunately no single game would bring in enough users to be profitable. Instead, the online gaming business needs to set up super-sites capable of delivering multiple content (news, games, weather, chat) for free. This would give them an audience large enough to attract advertisers.
Steve Dealer
c715591@showme.missouri.edu
Thanks for a mind-boggling article on the genome ( "Map the Genome, Hack the Genome," Wired 5.10, page 152), and congratulations: I think this is the first time I've seen Moctezuma's name spelled correctly in a US nonspecialized publication. It is also nice to see you using Spanish accent marks.
Francisco J. Sánchez
Tijuana, Mexico
I'd like to correct some misconceptions about the Brazilian media in "Agressivo" by Patrick Symmes (Wired 5.10, page S11). Contrary to what he implies, Brazilians have been watching and continue to watch tons of American TV. Many Brazilians grew up on shows such as Hawaii Five-O, Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk, Dallas, Miami Vice, and, more recently, Fox Broadcasting's Melrose Place, The Simpsons, and Married ... with Children. The Brazilian-based Rede Globo network does produce many shows that are seen around the world, but, for better or worse, American TV is everywhere.
Symmes also implies that even though they live in squalor, slum dwellers are willing to spend big bucks on satellite antennas for clear TV reception. In reality, the only way to receive television signals in outlying regions is with a parabolic antenna; there is no cable, and rabbit ears pick up only static.
Larry Bank
bankl@gate.net
Spellbound by the image of Gary Reback fighting valiantly against the Microsoft bully ( "The Robin Hood of the Rich," Wired 5.08, page 108), Wired paints a picture of government antitrust enforcers as lackluster lawyers "asleep at the switch." The article describes government analysts as "applying old laissez-faire models" to new, high tech markets. Supposedly, antitrust enforcement is being "held hostage" by misguided economists who are "often in deep space." Well, Reback and Wired are the ones who need to wake up, not the Department of Justice.
In 1995, I served as chief economist at the Justice Department's antitrust division, and the story told by Reback and Wired is pure fiction. Reback embraces a new economics, the economics of positive feedback and network externalities; I wrote several of the pioneering papers in this field during the 1980s with my Berkeley colleague and partner Michael Katz. What do you think - that I forgot my own research or my experience working with Silicon Valley companies when I went into government? I was intimately involved in the Microsoft investigation at the DOJ, and the notion that the antitrust division was unable to comprehend or apply economics suitable for the software industry, or the Internet, is hogwash. To cite one example, many people urged Justice in 1995 to stop Microsoft from launching MSN, fearing the giant would leverage its desktop monopoly into dominance of online services. We decided to let the market take its course. We were right.
Wired states: "One fact nobody can deny: if there's anyone who's going to help define antitrust law for the 21st century, it's Gary Reback." Reality: vision in high tech antitrust will come from the thoughtful leaders at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division, Robert Pitofsky and Joel Klein, hopefully with input from right-thinking economists.
Carl Shapiro
shapiro@haas.berkeley.edu
Fred Hapgood's minireview of Terence Kealey's book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research ( "Unplugging State Science," Wired 5.08, page 129) spouts the libertarian pipe dream that if the government got out of the universities, everyone would be better off. His statement that university science is "incremental, unambitious" displays an incredible ignorance of both what is happening at universities and how science occurs.
Granted there are major discoveries - evolution, relativity - that upset paradigms and reorient thinking. But if every scientist tried to upset the status quo, not much progress would be made, nor would scientific inquiry be very robust. Incremental research - discoveries built upon previous discoveries - are how we learn more about the natural world. For example, a small group of virologists in the 1970s and early '80s were studying an obscure class of viruses called retroviruses. Then came the AIDS epidemic and its causative agent HIV, which is a retrovirus. Immediately, research could proceed into the development of drugs and treatments.
The example of retrovirus research also underscores the importance of government-sponsored study, because few private foundations or commercial entities have the foresight or the interest to sponsor basic research that may have profound impacts on human disease. If the government stepped out of funding science, then basic research - which fuels advances in applied research and technology - would all but cease.
Aron Silverstone
aron@acpub.duke.edu
The article "Afterlife" (Wired 5.07, page 146) neglected to mention that the process of extracting gold from old printed circuit boards is incredibly toxic. The sludge left over after the acid bath separates the gold (and kills most nearby wildlife) is used as fuel. Fortunately, it's too dirty to be used as legal fuel in the US - that's why gold refineries operate in Canada.
Matt Kosokoff
Server Switch: The Krebbsville MUD ( "The Wild Indoors," Wired 5.09, page 78) now functions independently at www.araneum.mudservices.com/. Reanimator: Japanese anime legend Osamu Tezuka ( "Deductible Junkets," Wired 5.10, page 82) died in 1989. That Girl: Wired Travel contributor geekgirl (Wired 5.10, page S3) lives at www.geekgirl.com.au/.
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