Re: Compuserve is Not "Censoring": Look to Governments for the Cause

[tallpaul@pipeline.com (tallpaul)]

On Dec 28, 1995 23:30:19, 'tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)' wrote: 
 
 
 
> 
>I see a positive longterm trend toward people connecting through smaller, 
>more local services. 
> 
 
Quite correct. 
 
Not only does the internet radically change (at least perceptions) of space
and time, it also is producing serious disequilibriums of scale in
economics. 
 
Economy of scale states that until a farily high limit is reached, bigger
enterprises tend to produce goods that are less expensive than those
produced by smaller enterprises. Specialized handicraft production aside,
the goods produced in larger enterprises also tend to be of higher quality.

 
The disequilibrium here began with the development of the microprocessor as
we see from the shift to the old centralized IBM iron to the microcomputers
we're using today. Ditto certain aspects of network switching. Ditto DES
moved from centralized hardware to decentralized software. 
 
We're seeing a growing dystopian world where national entities and
non-governmental organizations all seek to enforce their particular
cultural/political/economic/etc. biases on the global internet. I believe
this process will continue for some period of time. 
 
At the same time we may (and I think likely will) see aspects of the net
broken down into widely geographically separated locations that
simultaneously have no more effect on end users than the floor at the
central library on which the book we want resides. E.G. we'll use Denmark
to get "alt.sex.granny.gum-jobs," ftp to Singapore for
"/warez/microsoft/win99/hack/" and to the Turcos Islands for
"data.finance.internal.morgan." 
 
We'll have all three open and on our monitor at the same time, passed
through an second-level ISP in some small country that decides there's
money in switching and will no more regulate data throughput than they
would try to hold hotel keepers responsible for the content of the phone
calls made by their tenants. 
 
     --tallpaul