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 2)22. The net isn't dead, but yes, it is boring. So, if the entire free world gets 15mbps to the curb, then what? Will I order movies on demand like I already do now?
Personally, the mobile internet (iphone) with gps integration etc is much more exciting. I can imagine some day walking a golf course, whip out my iphone and see the course, yardage etc. What about being at an amusement park with a live map. Outdoor mall? I think of this as granular mapping. The applications are endless.
In short, buy grmn or nvt because the growth in that market will be spectacular and drive much of how we do things in the future.
Posted at 12:07PM on Aug 25th 2007 by John
23. I agree with the point that there is still innovation going on right now with the internet, but the ideas, sites, and applications are not nearly as exciting as they were several years ago when broadband access became mainstream. Right now, the equation for moderate success on the internet is: topic of interest + web 2.0 technology = new social app that receives several weeks of fame.
Kirk made a good point that there is still innovation in radio, television, and even highways - it's just not as exciting as it was years ago due to technological and engineering limitations and the lack of interest from the general population which results. The original debut is always hard to top.
We need more bandwidth to allow for the "wow" factor to return. Until then, the typical reaction or lack of reaction will be just average.
Posted at 12:10PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Jared Bieberich
24. Only in the US has the last mile bandwidth stagnated. Compare South Korea's or Japan's or even Chinese cities last mile bandwidth over the last 5 years and you'll find a different picture.
Also I wouldn't say the internet is dead, but it is no longer leaping forward in revolutionary steps, it is now an evolutionary growth. Same in highways. There are evolutions going on in highway design (quite a few in how they are built more than the end result) all the time, you just don't notice because they're small steps. And there are many billion dollar firms making money off building highways. Even if they are boring.
Posted at 12:38PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Yakko
25. Mark - Dead on!
I make money designing websites and applications for local businesses. Its actually my second job. What do businesses want? Bleeding edge applications that will set them apart from their competition? Not a chance.
The internet has become a place where truly crappy applications are heralded as major "winners". Myspace is a perfect example. Lame on all accounts. It's really nothing more than a giant email client that displays html and has restrictions to what you can and can not send. Is that a ground breaking technological advancement? If you think so, you don't have a clue about technology.
What about applications like Twitter? Dumb. Do you really want to know when your "friends" are taking a crap of picking their nose? That is another example of the web 2.0 lameness. Twitter is nothing more than a IM client with a few "extra features"... which in no way change the fact that its IM.
The internet is a giant mall with a library component at this point.
You have the mall rats (myspace, facebook, IM, etc.), the stores (Amazon, Newegg, p0rn sites, etc.), and the library component. (Wiki, Make! Zine, DIY sites, University sites, Online education, etc.)
Like Mark says... until we get bandwidth throughput increased, the internet is dead in the water. "Revolutionary" sites can't truly be developed until then. No spins on myspace, facebook or any other IM/Email/webcam site is going to "change" the internet fundamentally. Besides, those applications are boring and lame.
Posted at 2:43PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Martinez
26. do a little bit of research into the idea of a semantic web - the implications will blow your mind. Basically, it's all data ever in a common format accessible by anyone at any point. We have reams and reams of data available to us, but none of it is really available in an open, easily accesible fashion. Imagine if all of the data that Nasa ever collected was available, combined with weather information from the last 60 years, combined with ice core samples and tree frog populations and the migration patterns of birds and volcanic eruptions and every other form and type of data we've ever collected as a species. Imagine if any researcher anywhere in the world had access to this data at any time. We can start to make connections and see the data and how it interacts in whole new ways. Really understand our environment from a well infomed point of view and make conclusions and gather new data in new ways. I think it's going to be a revolution.
Posted at 5:30PM on Aug 25th 2007 by zach wilson
27. Mark, you're shooting too low. The post strikes me as being in the same vein as the U.S. Commissioner of Patents Charles H. Duell's fabled 1899 comment that we should close the patent office, because everything that is going to be invented has already been invented.
On the contrary, Mark - I think that we've still only scratched the surface of what "the Internet" (really I mean pervasive, networked computing in general) is going to make possible. Even if the bandwidth available to consumers doesn't increase at all we're going to see a combination of social and technological innovation that continues to evolve - albeit in different ways than the cheesy, frivolous, gimmicky and I agree boring ways than we're seeing now. I would refer you to Chris Abad's excellent illustration:
http://the-mathclub.net/site/toorconbeta/slides/4.html
showing the current state of affairs with Web 2.0. This is because real technology and social revolutions - especially of this scale: the Googles and Wikipedias of the world - take time to emerge.
Posted at 5:40PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Jason Thane
28. What you're describing is a shift from geometric to linear growth - "top of the S curve" stuff.
Not dead, but boring mayhap.
Thing is, if you look at previous technologies they move in waves of successive S curves (think of PC chips etc)
AOL, Prodicy (walled garden ISP) etc came at the end of the dialup wave.
In that way, one can see Blogging as the broadband net's bulletin board / Altnet, MySpace et al are the AOL equivalent.
Endgame here is the move to open SocNets...we await the SocNet Mosaic
In that case, after that occurs we are on start of next S curve.
29. I have little patience or respect for people who starkly abuse simple and straightforward words, seemingly for the purpose of link-bait. I'd say cluelessness was another option, but Mark, you're a fellow Hoosier and I know you're smarter than one might think from such posts ;)
Anyway, we need more thoughtful and conversations, not more incendiary or needlessly controversial ones.
Internet, boring? Only for those with no passion or imagination. Dead? I can't even begin to discern how someone could responsibly use that word in the context of the Internet.
Mainstream? Sure. Evolving more slowly? Maybe. Progressing unevenly? Yep. But such descriptions wouldn't have made for such an exciting headline, eh?
Quit being a blogchump, will ya?
Posted at 9:16PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Adam
30. Japanese researching 'new Internet' for 2020.
Reference URL
http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/08/20/new.internet.in.2020/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/123015/japan-building-new-internet.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20070819a2.html
Interesting!
Posted at 10:50PM on Aug 25th 2007 by Mary Clemente
31. Note to Mark: The WWW != The Internet. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, et al. are not Internet applications they are web applications.
If you are pointing at The Internet to say that it is boring, okay. If you are pointing to the Web to say that it is dead, I have one word for you to consider - mobility.
This continues to be the challenge for the web and its services. There are wonderfully exciting innovations and developments occurring around mobilizing the web. Want to find something new and invigorating? Look to the global mobile industry. Mobility is certainly alive and on the upward development curve.
Posted at 11:24PM on Aug 25th 2007 by mobilejones
33. Internet is dead and boring. It can be true when we judge from technology. I may agree with you here Mr. Cuban, however your post is the example of overgeneralisation and mixing technological achievements with social behavior. Technology is defined by its users and it's them who decide whether something is dead or not. I can observe the growing gap between application designers, technology gurus that judge medium from their perspective without understanding the users of programs they develop. Internet is social medium and Internet is people. So can we draw a conclusion that all people are dead and boring?? Besides it seems to me like stating that any medium is dead is the sure way to make the way to headlines. There is still for us a lot of homework to do: history and evolution. Better understanding of mechanisms behind society and media usage could save us from doom day prophecies.
Posted at 7:09AM on Aug 26th 2007 by Daria Radota Rasmussen
34. I completely agree with you! Everyday I see some new websites labeled "web 2.0" established. But they do not have anything that really creative, some just a whole clone of another so-called "successful website". It's really boring. Why not come up with something really new?
Posted at 10:14AM on Aug 26th 2007 by ehaagwlke
35. When defining your title's meaning, ie. "The Internet is Dead and Boring", as an established, stable, reliable, standardized Internet infrastructure, for the most part, you are stating the obvious.
But, your key thesis of your post is stated as "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." That is wrong. This is because Internet bandwidth and throughput will not be driver for the next revolution of "explosively exciting ideas".
But just to get out of the way the issue of increasing bandwidth, yes I agree that we will not see large numbers to the average American user, such as 1Gbps through a single interface (or even muliple interfaces). Even aggregating Internet access via the near term 700Mhz Internet, as well as WiFi, phone line, cable, satellite will probably not attain 1Gbps to the user. But inevitably, every user will utilize more than one interface type to the Internet. This aggregate will definitely attain 25Mbps to the user. And that isn't too bad.
Frankly, there is no big driver for 1Gbps to the user. There is no big demand for it. And goverment cannot monitor, sniff the data, at that rate. Granted, delivering large sized audio/visual content, like HD, or else delivering ONLINE APPS provides a means for "explosively exciting ideas", and would benefit greatly from 1Gbps to the user. There may be a few more examples. But, it is obviously just too expensive to provide that infrastructure with 1Gbps to the user. It won't happen for a long time. So, these application will only be seen on the Internet in a scaled-down fashion.
So, what will be the next big thing on the Internet. What will cause the "explosion of exciting ideas". It will be in the area of SMART DEVICES (coupled with GPS) and TARGETTED ADVERTISING. Currently, most American have only a single node to the Internet. As more Internet devices are available at the home, we'll see a proliferation of multinodal homes, ie. Internet networks in the home (note that rising number of multinodal homes as well as the new 700Mhz infrastructure does, in fact, radically impact many aspects of the Internet).
Targetted ads will be on cell phones, tablets, TVs, desktops, radio, signs/billboards, electronically on clothing. Targetted ads may be downloaded in non-realtime, then stored away until ready for presentation with content. The Internet is communication. It's just in it's infancy. At this time, non-realtime, near-realtime, and realtime delivery will be it's mechanism.
How has the Internet impacted society. One biggie, OUTSOURCING!!! Of course, there are other ways to describe the impact. But, just to state the obvious. more and more and more domestic social changes as well as third world country opportunities have been caused by the Internet. What more "explosively exciting new ideas" can result from that!!!
Posted at 11:42AM on Aug 26th 2007 by www.freeway2000.com
36. You must be happy..; having your little days of fame by spreading your grandiloquent opinion...
We dont care about the question if Internet is dead or not... because this is not even a subject...Its only a good way to speak about you and have trafic and having the impression to be one of the web guru..
In conclusion, one thing is certain, the egocentric human nature is not dead... and will never.
Posted at 12:00PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Alain Ternet
37. "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."
"Dead" is not the right word then. "Dead" is a permanent state.
Posted at 12:19PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Thomas Claburn
38. Mark is wrong... I have been an avid Internet user since the mid 1990's and in today's Web 2.0 environment I can finally start to do the things that I envisioned doing years ago...
First the infrastructure is still growing and expanding. The percentage of people on broadband is way higher than in the past and let's not forget the mobile capabilities that exists. What this correlates to is a much broader audience and the capability to personally touch people through the web is higher let alone the significant impact of mobile marketing and other B2B and B2C opportunities.
The technology has improved dramatically so along with the web infrastructural improvement we have a number of new ways to make things work and work better.
Lastly, so far as my Internet Experience not being that different than it was 5 years ago. Mark is dead wrong. I have a wired family and we perform so many functions today that simply did not exist 5-years ago that this article can't be taken seriously.
Perhaps Mark Cuban has become bored of the Internet but the Internet in and of itself has not become boring...
Dan
39. The car was interesting. But it was the big changes it caused -- like say, the development of interstate highways, suburbs, and the mobility of the western's world's population that were really interesting, and continue to be interesting.
Even if the Web platform isn't evolving (and I think there's life in the old girl yet), the fun part is how our assimilation and use of these new applications will change the world. That's pretty far from dead -- that's alive and thrashing.
Posted at 1:16PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Josh Bernoff
40. Define platform. Arguably, both the Wright Bros. plane and the Boing are on teh same platform, namely, the air foil, which provides lift. Attaching a jet engine did not displace that platform; it made it more useful. The problem addressed was getting physical objects, goods, people, from point A to point B. Previous platforms for solving that problem were: bipedalism, horses, bicycles, automobiles/trains. A new platform would be an anti-geavity machine of some sort or the transporter (like in Star Trek)(assuming that's even possible). So, increasing the throughput to x times current rates would not be a new platform for getting "services" from Point A (Mr. Cuban's studio, e.g.) to Point B (my home, e.g.).
Rather, increased throughput would enhance the platform, make it more useful. The more useful a platform is, the more collateral innovations are possible. Jumping on or putting things on a jet plane made more new things possible by getting things together. Gettting me together with new applications or services is what greater throughput will do.
21. To some there may appear be a lull in obvious innovation at the moment, but "software as a service" is a gathering storm, with many surprises still to come. New enabling layers will sit atop our existing internet/web infrastructure. A little patience is required.
Eric Alterman, Founder/Chairman KickApps Corporation
Posted at 10:31AM on Aug 25th 2007 by Eric Alterman