Clifford Stoll: Why Web Won't Be Nirvana | Newsweek Technology

The Internet? Bah!

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Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet--which there isn't--the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where--in the holy names of Education and Progress--important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.

STOLL is the author of "Silicon Snake Oil--Second Thoughts on the Information Highway," to be published by Doubleday in April.

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???It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solutions to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.??? ???Thomas Edison, 1895

At least Mr. Edison gets somewhat of a pass since airplanes and aerodynamics was new and there wasn???t to be any examples of a viable fixed wing flying craft for another 8 years. At the time he said this no one even had the foggiest idea of how to make something heavier than air fly.

True enough the internet in 1995 was just getting ready to move into the mainstream. The possibilities for it are and remain endless and even the dimmest bulb could extrapolate possibilities. I was there and remember the excitement. This article was very short sighted even taking into account the time it was written. It is the equivalent of someone looking at a blank canvas and declaring that no one will ever draw anything on it. I think its amazing how utterly wrong this guy was about nearly everything with the exception of some social ramifications. What???s more astonishing is how sure he was about it. He doesn???t get the same pass Mr. Edison got because he had all the knowledge to extrapolate the exact opposite but chose the easier naysayer route rather than use his imagination.

Its for this reason that I get a hearty laugh out of most skeptics and naysayers. Every new idea or technology will either fail or bring the world to an end according to them. There simply can't be anymore big thoughts or amazing discoveries to be made in their minds. For them we are always living at the height of what our species can do and anything new is unnecessary or a threat (mostly to their narrow view of the world). I imagine these people have been around since modern humans first stepped on to the scene, they probably doubted fire would have any practical use.

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Posted By: diertac @ 11/18/2009 7:06:53 PM

Actually, it was much more vile and vitriolic back then. FB and Twitter are far more civilized than Usenet, a medium where moderation was impossible, anonymity was easy and stalking/threats/hate speech were common. The Internet has become much more civilized, although forums and bulletin boards of today can get pretty close to the anger that abounded on Usenet, if there are lax moderators.
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Posted By: cobaltblue1975 @ 11/13/2009 5:52:04 PM

???It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solutions to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.??? ???Thomas Edison, 1895

At least Mr. Edison gets somewhat of a pass since airplanes and aerodynamics was new and there wasn???t to be any examples of a viable fixed wing flying craft for another 8 years. At the time he said this no one even had the foggiest idea of how to make something heavier than air fly.

True enough the internet in 1995 was just getting ready to move into the mainstream. The possibilities for it are and remain endless and even the dimmest bulb could extrapolate possibilities. I was there and remember the excitement. This article was very short sighted even taking into account the time it was written. It is the equivalent of someone looking at a blank canvas and declaring that no one will ever draw anything on it. I think its amazing how utterly wrong this guy was about nearly everything with the exception of some social ramifications. What???s more astonishing is how sure he was about it. He doesn???t get the same pass Mr. Edison got because he had all the knowledge to extrapolate the exact opposite but chose the easier naysayer route rather than use his imagination.

Its for this reason that I get a hearty laugh out of most skeptics and naysayers. Every new idea or technology will either fail or bring the world to an end according to them. There simply can't be anymore big thoughts or amazing discoveries to be made in their minds. For them we are always living at the height of what our species can do and anything new is unnecessary or a threat (mostly to their narrow view of the world). I imagine these people have been around since modern humans first stepped on to the scene, they probably doubted fire would have any practical use.
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Posted By: NotSoBigMac @ 11/12/2009 9:44:57 AM

What he was (and is) right about is, that when everyone is shouting, few are listening. That is very true.