SofTech Consulting

Belly of the Whale - Vol. 23
June, 1997

Here are a bunch of disconnected, sometimes contradictory, and occassionally bizarre facts that I've learned firsthand about people using the worldwide web. Some of them were gleaned from my experiences related to the interactive bulletin boards that SofTech Consulting sponsors. Others have come from my own travels in and out of the deeper recesses of the web. A few of these tidbits may be old, hackneyed notions to some of you, but most are revelatory for me.

Most people don't read what they've written before posting messages.	I'm astonished by the frequency of errors in the messages. I know that many people are not good typists, but why do so few people take the time to proofread and edit their entries? Back when connect time was an issue, the fear of an enormous monthly bill was cause for much haste and waste, but now that just about everyone is on a fixed rate, what's the hurry? Are people lazy, or am I just being anal?
A disproportionate number of AOL subscribers think that AOL is the internet.	While there are several people out there from other front-end and wrap-around service providers (Prodigy, Compuserve, etc.), it seems that the AOL subscribers are more likely than others to lack a realistic understanding of what the internet is. Whenever someone posts a message with the directive to "Jump to whatever" or "email me at JoeSchmoe" without indication of his/her service provider, it's almost always an AOLer. Someone suggested to me that this is due to the large number of neophytes using AOL in proportion to other similar services. I think this is a valid point, but I also believe that AOL makes a concentrated effort in its advertising, documentation, and support to perpetuate this misconception.
You can't make (big) money on the internet.	Well, not legally, anyway. If you think I'm wrong, ask amazon.com, who spent $15 million last year on their awesome internet site to sell $10 million worth of books. Sure, many vendors are conducting their businesses on the 'net and picking up a reasonably fair amount of orders, but who's making the "big" bucks? The popular search engine companies (AltaVista, etc.) may be raking in some larger bundles on ad revenues, but they're the exception. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, and most of the big providers are losing money, in spite of what they may tell their partners and investors. The only consistent winners in this planet-wide phenomenon are the telephone companies.
Age has nothing to do with the quality of web offerings.	Some of the best things I've read on the internet were put there by folks in their seventies and children under twelve.
The best and the worst aspect of the internet is the anonymity of its contributors.	I could probably write a great deal (and have done so already) about this issue, but I'll be terse here: the bulk of the wonderful plethora of information on the internet is provided by nameless, faceless, and uncredited people, each of whom took the time and effort to share with an unknown audience. The worst garbage, the ugliest, antisocial, predatory, and depraved madness on the web comes from similar hoardes, who hide behind the shadows of this very same anonymity.
Communication technology is advancing excruciatingly slowly.	Three years ago, I bought a PC with a CD reader that boasted a speed rating of "2X". The typical hard drive for a 3 1/2" bay stored 540 meg. At the same time, my modem was rated at 28.8bps, and most of the online services were offerring connections at that speed. Now I can buy a CD reader for the same price rated "16X", an advance of 800% , and a 3 1/2" hard drive that stores 4.2GIG, another 800% advance, for about the same price. But modems? And connections? Fuhgeddaboudit! We've been offerred a piddling 15% advance in three years. I've been reading about a new wireless communication technology that accommodates internet connectivity at 20 times the current speed. But at the same cost? Not a chance - it will cost approximatly 400% more than the current average service rate.
Viruses are being replaced by junk email as the scourge of the internet.	If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're lucky.
People generally don't read what's at the bottom of web pages.	Of course, the fact that you're reading this particular item means there are exceptions to this observation.

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