A lot of people are all up and upset about my comments that the Internet is dead and boring. Well guess what, it is. Every new technological, mechanical or intellectual breakthrough has its day, days, months and years. But they don't rule forever. That's the reality.
Every generation has its defining breakthrough. Cars, TV, Radio, Planes,highways, the wheel, the printing press, the list goes on forever. I'm sure in each generation to whom the invention was a breakthrough it may have been heretical to consider those inventions "dead and boring". The reality is that at some point they stop changing. They stop evolving. They become utilities or utilitarian and are taken for granted.
Some of you may not want to admit it, but that's exactly what the net has become. A utility. It has stopped evolving. Your Internet experience today is not much different than it was 5 years ago.
That's not to say the impact of the Internet on the entire planet hasn't been off the charts. It has been. It has changed the lives of billions of people and it will continue to be a utility to billions of people. Just like cars, TVs, Radio, Planes, Highways, you get the point.
Some people have tried to make the point that Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet is evolving. Actually it is the exact opposite. Web 2.0 is proof that the Internet has stopped evolving and stabilized as a platform. Its very very difficult to develop applications on a platform that is ever changing. Things stop working in that environment. Internet 1.0 wasn't the most stable development environment. To days Internet is stable specifically because its now boring.(easy to avoid browser and script differences excluded)
Applications like Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, etc were able to explode in popularity because they worked. No one had to worry about their ISP making a change and things not working. The days of walled gardens like AOL, Prodigy and others were gone. The days of always on connections were not only upon us, but in sufficient numbers at home, work and school, that the applications ran fast enough to hold our interest and compel us to participate. In other words, the Internet stabilized. Great software was developed to run on the software.
Just as a reminder to some, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, etc are not "the Internet". They are software applications that run on the Internet. Just like MicroSoft Excel is a software application that runs on MicroSoft and Apple operating systems.
The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead. They are dead until bandwidth throughput to the home reaches far higher numbers than the vast majority of broadband users get today.
Few people's actual throughput to their homes have increased more than 5mbs in the past 5 years, and few people's throughput (if you dint understand the difference between throughput and the marketed downstream speeds your read from your ISP, you should) to their homes will increase more than 10mbs in the next 5 years. That's not enough to define a platform that allows really smart people to come up with groundbreaking ideas.
In fact, if you index the expected growth in bandwidth consumption by applications that are heavy LAST MILE bandwidth users (as opposed to the Internet backbone where there is plenty of bandwidth but consumers cant get to it) vs the actual increase in LAST MILE bandwidth available to the home, our net effective throughput to the home could decline over the next few years. The Internet is like a highway. There is plenty of room for everyone to go as fast as the throughput will let you go, that is until the traffic forces everyone to slow down.
For some reason a lot of people don't understand that concept.
So, let me repeat, The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead for the foreseeable future..
The Internet is boring. That is not a bad thing. In fact its easy to make the argument that its a great thing. That it has become the utility that the people who worked to get it started firmly believed it would. That it finally is the platform for any number of mundane applications that are easy to write and that anyone can use and trust.
Just like wheels, printing presses, cars, TV, radio, electricity, water.....
When we reach a point
The Internet is Dead and Boring
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. MC: I agree! Outside of getting news via the usual suspects, it's basically boring. Unless you belong to a very cool and private social network, there aint much happening on the internet. Farcebook and myskag are no longer novelties and are now being used to promote political candidates and commerce on the internet! So what are you going todo to gets to the next level?
Posted at 7:07PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Mary Clemente
3. Hey Mark, The thrill is gone no doubt but just like the printing press, cars, etc that you mentioned. People that have it wont go without it. Its fast food compared to a nice meal as someone once stated but it is nice to use to just look something up instead of paging through a gazillion books to find out like lets say install a water heater, Its been a while since you done that Im sure though. Thanks for the thoughts.
Posted at 7:39PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Frankie from Lawnside
4. Mark, I agree across the board. But it's kind of like saying "if you consume more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight." It is the nature of how things work. Successful new breakthroughs that are very useful and highly adopted become utilities/commodities.
Ever it was, ever it shall always be.
But isn't it the same with the last mile, too? And is that really "next"? Will the last mile really give us a new breakthrough or just more and better versions of stuff we're already used to?
Posted at 7:52PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Robert Seidman
5. Kray, I think you showed what Mark was talking about. Yes the internet has penetrated into more homes, and more people are using it...but as a physical thing it has not really changed. He said it has become more of a platform now than an evolving technology.
Posted at 7:54PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Matt
6. Mark:
I think there are still "explosively exciting new ideas" that will make the Internet less dull and boring. So much so that I'm going to post one right here in order to hopefully get some feedback from your readership. So here it goes:
I'd like to share here my idea for the "Private Identity Network", on which I have since applied for several patents. Members of the Private Identity Network (PIN) could log on with their Private Identity Provider (PIP) when they use any computer anywhere. Your Private Identity Provider would then provision your real, pseudonymous, or anonymous identity to any Internet site you visit that requires some level of identity or security information. Secure connections between PIPs will form the Private Identity Network as a new secure layer surrounding the existing Internet- you may think of it as a gated community on the Internet that most everyone will want to live in.
Private Identity Providers would require real world documentation when registering new users and would work together through a Network Guardian that is the central authority and makes sure each person has only one active registration on the Private Identity Network ever. In order to enhance security and provide for ongoing upgrades, the Private Identity Providers will compete with one another for users by offering the most trustworthy service while the Network Guardian manages only minimal information to prevent duplicate registrations.
Private Identity Providers will able to offer their services free to users as long as users agree to accept targeted marketing messages. Any Private Identity Provider that compromises a user's information intentionally or unintentionally will most likely ruin their business as users will abandon them for a more secure Provider. Identity Providers should be very lucrative enterprises, as they will have an unparalleled look into their user's lives and be able to target marketing messages much better than any existing technology.
By using an Identity Provider every time you use the Internet, you will have a service that both provisions your identity as you direct and protects your identity as you direct. Life on the Internet changes radically when users become accountable to their actions. Most of the common problems of the Internet may soon disappear.
If this sounds too good to be true, please let me know your objections by visiting my site, http://replacegoogle.com. There may be fatal flaws here I have not considered or there may be objections you have that are covered in the Q and A there.
Posted at 8:05PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Trey Tomeny
7. Please help spread the word that DSL is not broadband. The "Kentucky Model" is not the model the nation should adopt:
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/news/2007/08/16/kentucky-is-broadband-model/ follow the links to read the Kentucky Model.
It's sad when the average down is 5mbps in the US when Sweden and France it's 15 mbps down, and China and Korea it's 60+ down.
If the Kentucky Model gets adopted we will fall further behind the rest of the world.
As ridiculous as it sounds, we are very close to having this standard being adopted by the FCC at ratified by Congress.
Then the politicos will brag how the US has advanced because XX% of the country has access to "broadband" aka DSL.
Posted at 8:26PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Mark Van Patten
8. but where would we be without wikipedia?
Posted at 10:47PM on Aug 24th 2007 by sterling
9. For the 90% of consumers, the internet is boring.
But replacing the internet for research, government is the 2nd private version of the internet.
This is just like the original but on separate lines, or bandwitdh, not sure..
But about 2 years ago I was listening to NPR. A researcher in Mass. was remote controlling an under water imaging robot in the kelp fields of Monterey Bay, CA. Can you imagine the throughput required for real time imagery, in high enough definition to conduct detailed research?
Soon enough, that will be available to corporations, local governments. And the home is not too far after that.
What cable provider and phone company isn't salavating at that?
Posted at 11:02PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Total Sports direct
10. C'mon Mark. The net has only really started pragmatically about 10 years ago. Plenty of more room to grow. Lot of assumptions made on your part, like: Who says it has to be a hardwired last mile?
-jim
http://marketsaw.blogspot.com
11. Dude, you're off your rocker on this one. The wheel's evolution has slowed, but it's far from done, and completed. So are the other items you've listed. Radio, generally speaking has evolved to allow wireless access, etc. Car radios have even evolved to satellite receivers. TV: Flat screen, Hi Def; Planes: Faster, bigger, more acrobatic, quieter, more fuel economic; Highways: adding recycled tires to asphalt mixtures to increase lifespan of hwys AND tires. The evolution of these things was never at the speed that the net has evolved, but none of them have completed evolution, they've just slowed down.
Posted at 11:36PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Kirk
12. Have to agree with Kirk...I think there will still be plenty of good things to come with the internet. Many smart people out there will continue to develop, including you! I hope that in the next year you will look back on this post and rewrite it to include advancements that will come to make the highway more efficient and therefore more capable.
Posted at 11:59PM on Aug 24th 2007 by J Sandifer
13. I respect you, but I really think you are off on this one. The internet has completely changed in the past 5 years and I think its potential is virtually unlimited. I understand more infrastructure will need to be built, but the demand will be there and with the demand will come the funds for the infrastructure.
Posted at 11:59PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Rob
14. i agree, but boring? maybe. dead? not quite. i agree that it has become a utility, but using your analogy with electricity, not everyone is powered up yet. it would be dead if use was limited like it was five years ago. it hit the mainstream and is embraced by many, and that alone will keep it from being 'dead'. while you can argue that we are limited by the amount of information we can get through our current broadband, our human intellect will reach a point where we are unable to consume all that we want.
15. Regarding throughput, Malthus theorized that the "throughput" of a civilization vis-a-vis food (and resources in general) would be outstripped by population growth. He got both sides of the equation wrong. While the physical pipe might seem too narrow to forecast logarithmically increasing bandwidth, novel utilization of that pipe is difficult to forecast at best.
More interesting to my mind, is that while the internet qua internet may now be a stable platform, there will be and indeed are already profoundly innovative applications that are directly derived from it. Some of these applications will have implications of equal, if not greater influence on science, culture, politics, etc. than did the internet during its ascendance.
Then again, I just took a shower in absinthe, so YMMV.
Posted at 12:27AM on Aug 25th 2007 by Eliot Frick
16. I enjoyed reading this post. I do agree with a lot of what you said. I am not here to discuss what I disagree with, but ask what you think Googles plans are with this so called "Dark Fiber" that they have been purchasing?
Its obviously infrastructure to support some high traffic initiative(s), but what? My guess is it will involve media distribution and possibly enhanced voice communications.
Googles dark fiber probably wont improve bandwidth throughput in the "last mile." CableTV/Internet and Telcom providers are going to make as much off their existing infrastructure as possible and Googles dark fiber wont reach the home. Hopefully wireless technologies improve in a manner that allows for significantly increased bandwidth throughput, reliability, security and range so home users can skip the "last mile" and connect somewhere closer to the high bandwidth thoughput internet backbones.
Posted at 1:09AM on Aug 25th 2007 by Jordan
17. Mark,
With fully respect to you and what you have done, I sincerely, however, disagree with this statement you had made. The internet is still far far away from EITHER dead OR boring.
"The web is evolving." When I say this sentence, I really mean more than other people say about it. In fact, I have done some very careful study about web evolution and conclude that the current web is still on its very early stage of evolution. This conclusion allows me believing that the web is now not only living but also living fabulously.
Currently I am writing a series about web evolution (which is actually an updated version of my web evolution article) at my own blog. I think you might be interested in reading them. In this web evolution series, I introduces a very new vision about World Wide Web. Based on this new vision, step by step I will show how new things (here I mean really new and creative ideas) can and will be invented in the future WWW.
The World Wide Web, unlike many other artificial products, is on a self-evolving process as if it is a natural product. This is probably the most fascinating side about WWW.
--- Yihong
Posted at 3:36AM on Aug 25th 2007 by Yihong Ding
18. The reason the WWW has stopped evolving is because people need it now and because the manufacturers/developers have become complacent.
Just when people didn't absolutely need cars back in the 40s, 50s and 60s, the cars were cool, exciting and visually appealing. As soon as the people became dependant on the automobile, the manufacturers stopped making them exciting. Ever realize that cars shows still only feature cars from before the 70s? It's because cars are boring as-all-get-out now. Sure they go faster and last longer and do more, but that's not exciting... well perhaps going faster is but you really can't utilize that feature without breaking laws and incurring great risk.
What will change the internet is if a few insightful and generous powers-that-be, selflessly dump a tremendous amount or time, energy and resources into an enormous update of the entire WWW infrastructure. Only then will things change (either that or a complete ruinous collapse will have to occur to change things as they are now).
19. There are interesting points you mentioned but I don't believe we can seperate YouTube, Myspace, etc. and Internet to different sides.
Posted at 9:53AM on Aug 25th 2007 by blockedmind
20. Hmm, I am not sure I am following your argument. Are you saying that once a platform becomes stable, there is no more innovation? So once the internal combustion engine became a stable technology, all innovation in the automotive industry ceased? Are you saying that there is no innovation in the airline industry because people no longer have to worry about the airplane crashing? Man, tell that to Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force.
That sounds pretty silly doesn't it? I mean tell the Ferrari enthusiast that cars are boring and dead. Hell, tell the environmentalist driving around a car that runs on corn that innovation is dead. Tell the millions of people whose lives were saved by new safety technologies like the airbag that no one is innovating automobiles anymore.
I think what you may be confusing with innovation is watershed moments in a technology's evolution. There were millions of innovations that lead to the Internet. There are millions more going on in internet technology right now that will lead to the next watershed moment that eclipses the Internet.
Like with the car example. They have become much more advanced and sophisticated than they were when the internal combustion engine became a "stable platform", but it will not be until they achieve another defining characteristic - like they fly and use hydrogen for fuel - that will make for another watershed moment. But there is no way to that moment without tons and tons of little and big innovations.
I don't know, I read this blog regularly and this post makes me wonder if you are just trying to write a headline, "Mark Cuban declares Internet 'DEAD'." Is that what you are doing? Bummer if it is. Way into the honest, no b.s. approach you usually have.
Posted at 10:03AM on Aug 25th 2007 by Mike C.
1. Mark, I both agree and disagree with you. I disagree in that 5 years ago the web was a very different creature than it is today.
While fundamentally it has not changed much, the penetration of broadband across North America has skyrocketed, allowing sites like MySpace and FaceBook to skyrocket with it. 5 years ago, I was not surfing google maps to find my way around, I was not (and still am not) spending half my time on sites like Facebook checking what other people arnt doing (Because they are too busy updating their facebook!)
I agree that it is becoming boring and does not have much in the way of innovation, but that can still change once more people have direct acces to Fibre connections (If the telecos actually lay it to houses!), I think this will help revive the internet and what it is to become, but until the bandwidth issues are resolved I think that we are stuck.
Great post though, dunno if you saw the article on Portfolio.com or not (http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2007/08/23/Mark-Cuban)
Have a great weekend!
K
Posted at 6:51PM on Aug 24th 2007 by Kray