Comments
by Scoper...
OVERLOAD-DOT-COM
It'll be interesting (for those of
us who last that long) to find out what future generations will think about
the Internet Explosion at the turn of the millennium. Today it's the "Wild,
Wired West," and we can't see the forest for the trees. It's even possible
to mix cheesy metaphors in the same sentence (like the previous one) and
post them for all to read. This is just too cool.
And it's the "coolness factor" that's
really driving the juggernaut: the very human urge to be part of "the latest
thing." It's what's been drawing billions of investor dollars into a sort
of electronic whirlpool, much as a real sea monster might create. But while
some of those dollars have multiplied exponentially - creating enough overnight
millionaires to make Regis Philbin blush - a lot of other dollars are being
sucked into the vortex, never to be seen again. The most remarkable thing
is that this surprises anyone.
It might surprise them less if they
knew that the Internet was originally designed to facilitate communication
between scientists, researchers and universities. E-commerce wasn't even
a dream until the 1980's, nor was connecting a big chunk of the world's
population via e-mail. It was never set up with that in mind, which is
why this great big house has such a shaky foundation. It's why teenagers
with a little knowledge and a little time can create "denial of service"
attacks, and the "Melissa," "I love you" and "resume" viruses. It's a game
to them (I call it "cyber-Jenga.") But the people playing it for money
aren't amused.
You can't logically compare the Internet
phenomenon to other fledgling miracles of the modern age. When cars were
new, and when TV was new, their evolution proceeded at an almost leisurely
pace. It took years, even decades for those technologies to become ubiquitous.
Compare: half of us have been wired
to the Web in just the last 60 months. It's as if we blinked, and here
it all was. And the blink of an eye isn't enough time to realize that this
incredible invention is still so new we really don't know yet what to do
with it.
It's the difference between "marketing"
and "hype." And still more hype, and hyping the hype. And the hype feeds
on itself, breeding web sites like cockroaches, enticing millions of people
to dump hard currency into nebulous dot-com companies, with little thought
as to what these companies might produce to give a return on the investment.
Some dot-coms have already blown much of their investors' capital on advertising
(remember the last Super Bowl?) Then, suddenly, it's flameout time, and
the stock becomes all but worthless as another grand vision is swallowed
by the vortex.
This is not unique to the Internet,
of course; all kinds of businesses fail all the time. What IS unique is
the frenzy to become part of an event that only yesterday, it seems, was
the size of a party balloon and now looks more like the Hindenburg.
No, I'm not predicting an "Oh, the
humanity"-style crash-and-burn of the Internet. I think it's here to stay,
though its form may change in the years to come. But I'm also saying that
the "shakeout" has begun, starting with the current NASDAQ jitters but
probably not ending there. It might take several more years for the dust
to settle and for us to see who's left standing. You'll know that's happening
when the shrill voices soften, and people become a little more contemplative
about where they put their hard-earned money.
A few years ago, I was reading the
obituary of a guy named Wilbur Hatch. In the early 1950's, he was the music
director for the Desi Arnaz orchestra, and among other things, wrote the
theme song for "I Love Lucy." Originally, he didn't even want his name
listed in the show's credits, because he thought TV was a silly fad and
didn't want to be publicly associated with it. I love irony as much as
I Love Lucy: it was his ticket to immortality. A half-century later, TV
is still around, so are "Lucy" reruns and the music Wilbur wrote for them.
Harry Truman once said of the atomic
bomb: "We can't un-invent the thing." So it is will all modern marvels.
I wouldn't want to un-invent the Internet. It's going to take some time
to trim its ragged edges, to make us reasonably safe from credit-card fraud,
hackers, virus-creators and really bad investment decisions. But even with
all that, the "Wild, Wired West" is still very, very cool.
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