13 Jan
2005
13 Jan
'05
8:25 a.m.
On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
But my original assertion was that the rapid rise,
development and
adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by
Linux.
And while you had "e-mail", unless we're talking about Internet e-mail
(and notwithstanding Fidonet), it was based in closed, proprietary
systems
that were not interconnected. The introduction to the Internet was an
afterthought, only when it proved itself to be indispensable to their
viability as a business.
It's all network effects... open standards typically win in the long
run because of network effects. The closed systems ended up needing to
communicate, so they ended up using the Internet. Then people were
stuck maintaining 2 systems... and everyone knows that doesn't last for
long.
Another thing is that we've had the internet since
the 1960s. Many
people
tried to bring predecessors of the Web (e.g. Videotex) systems to the
US
in the 1980s and failed.
Network effects again. Why do you think Europe, Japan etc. lead the US
vis-a-vis cell phone usage?