>>In short, maybe this is just a huge bump in the road, rather than similar to the chariot, railroad, radio, or canal-building events, which seem to me at least to be inventions that did not change much as time moved forward.<<
I think maybe you had to be living at the time in order to fully appreciate how much the railroad and the radio changed things. I wasn't, but I can speculate.
Take away your Internet connection, your television, your radio, and also your car. Your only source of news is the local paper, and *their* only source of news is on-the-scene dispatches which have to travel back via regular mail or, in extreme cases, telegraph. If a relative is in the armed forces, you don't know whether they're dead or alive for months at a time. Whole shiploads of people regularly vanish without a trace when the ship goes down in a storm. Any news less important than a presidential assassination is weeks out of date by the time you read it. Life moves at a slower pace because it *has* to.
Now add radio. Though radio itself doesn't change much once it's introduced, people discover more and more different uses for it. News can happen in real time. Ships can tell someone they're in trouble while it's still possible to save the survivors. Military units can actually communicate with each other while a battle is going on. Communities affected by natural disasters can call for help. People in different parts of the country can have shared, community experiences.
While the Internet will be (already is, in some ways) just as revolutionary, I don't see why it should be immune to the same boom-bust cycle. The underlying technology of the Internet itself will be forced to stabilize as the installed base grows. The applications built on top of it will reach smaller and smaller available markets as the "obvious" niches are filled. (Streaming music will probably appeal to fewer people than email and instant messaging. Streaming video will reach fewer still.) While the global middle class will get Internet access very quickly, it will be a very long time before the world as a whole sees the 40-60% penetration rates seen in developed countries.
Don't get me wrong. There are still many many growth opportunities in the Internet space. Lots of people will make lots of money. Lots of money has been made in broadcast media since the end of the radio boom, too, but RCA never again reached it's pre-bust peak.
Katherine |
