Re: If the Net were an industrial city... (nee: Freedom and security)

[rick hoselton <hoz@univel.telescan.com>]

At 08:11 PM 5/1/96 +0200, you wrote:
>

>> >It's now a major industrial city and will
>> 
>> It's industry being?
>

>It's a service industry.  An information service industry.  
>Journalists, phone-sex whores, business consultants, 
>bankers, brokers and barkers are moving into town, setting 
>up their virtual shops, and catering to the hordes of 
>readers, sightseers, sex-seekers, game-players, businessmen,
>professionals and amateurs of all stripes that are pouring 
>into town in wave after wave.

Its also a college town.  And a publishing center.  Then there's 
the warehouse district, and the post office.  There's also a thriving 
import-export business.  No wonder the political big-shots back in 
Atomland wish they could annex Cyberspace.  I predict that these 
attempts will succeed about as well as the European colonization of 
the Americas.  (ambiguity intended)

>Granted most of these virtual shops consist of a single
>ticket-taker's booth and a 10-meter tall neon facade.  

That's how boom-towns start, allright.

>Granted that the shops occasionally collapse on visitors,

Yes.

>that there are no streets, 

We have streets all over the place.  From here theres a 56Kb 
lane road that's even fairly well paved.  But they mostly 
lead to "Atomland expatriot hobbyists" and a few service 
subsistance farms.

>that you can't tell the sellers from the buyers 

It always starts with a barter economy.

>... few people are able to accept cash.

It will be a while, but someday folks will say:
"Save your greenbacks, Atomland will rise again!"
and they will be wrong.

>Still, it's a service industry.

Coming soon.... Virtual Food!  Okay, maybe I got 
a little carried away....