[opendtv] Re: Another point of view on walled gardens
- From: "John Shutt" <shuttj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 19:07:14 -0500
Bert,
1. You're not the average person, a fact I think we've established beyond a
shadow of a doubt over the years. For the average person, there was no
internet prior to AOL or CompuServe.
2. I do not think we missed a point being made by the article. The article
stated (and Craig, you can listen to this as well:)
"It reminds me of the early Internet provider battles with AOL and
CompuServe," said Don More, a partner at Updata, an advisory
investment bank for information technology mergers. "There are going
to be winners and losers."
"In those early days of the Web, users viewed content using those
specific systems; that is, AOL users saw only AOL content. Then the
World Wide Web became an open platform. Now, mobile devices are
splitting up the Web again."
Do you notice the sequence of events in the article? AOL users only saw AOL
content, and CompuServe users only saw CompuServe content (although many
companies had duplicate content on both systems.) Then the World Wide Web
became an open platform.
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
First, let me acknowledge that Craig is right -- we are bypassing the main
points the article was making.
There were other services that provided e-mail, computing, etc., much
before that, John. I used one in school first, then also at work, called
Dialcom (using x.25). At work we had other systems too, one being a Data
General corporate system.
In 1991, I got one of the first .com accounts on the Internet through a
cumbersome IBM mainframe in California. (SNA to the IBM mainframe, IIRC,
then IP over the Internet.) All text based, and completely unwalled
Internet access (including Gopher). So there were other ways to get out
there than walled gardens.
But again, the article talks about the WWW specifically. And by the time
the WWW started, there were ways of accessing it that were
non-proprietary. There was even a text-only browser, but I forget the
name. It was good for slower PCs.
Since I felt exactly the same about Internet access as I do about TV
access, I stayed away from any walled garden version of "Internet."
Because it was, to me, a contradiction in terms. So that's why when they
described the WWW as being AOL and Compuserve, I couldn't help but choke.
Those were aberrations of a really nice system.
Bert
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