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 3)42. Your comment is very US centric (most of the sites you mention are primarily used in the US). It also betrays a serious lack of imagination. As other commenters have pointed out, the internet is only 10 years old (if that) as a widely available communications medium and unlike its predecessors, it's not just a medium but an applications platform, with unbounded possibilities. And its penetration in significant parts of the world is small (e.g. China) or miniscule (e.g. India). What happens as the hundreds of millions of Indians who've just started using cell phones start getting online? I don't know but the notion that the internet's future possibilities are boring just as another billion people are poised to come online over the next decade seems a tad myopic.
Posted at 3:05PM on Aug 26th 2007 by ramster
43. Stopped Evolving???
Mark, four years ago when I started reading your blog, I had to check your website once a week to see if you had updated it. Today, I open up my RSS reader, and all the information I choose to receive is sitting there waiting for me. That alone is a pretty big change in my Internet experience, but for a guy who made his money selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo – I’d have thought you’d put a little more brain power into your blogging.
The Internet is not dead, and by no means is it boring. The Internet as a platform is replacing the need for traditional mediums such as TV, Radio, Newspapers, and even Billboards. For a platform that has only been commercially available for 13 years, I’d say that is astounding accomplishment. The Internet allows for the constant evolution of engagement and interactivity.
When is the last time you actually engaged with your TV? Research companies would love for you to believe that the average American spends roughly 26 hours per week in front of the tube. Get real! The TV is a passive medium. Like the radio of old, it is more than less background noise while you eat dinner, talk on the phone, play with your kids, etc.
The internet is changing the way we live. Artificial intelligence, in the realm of personal preferences allows us to see what we want, when we want it, and most importantly – HOW we want it. The Internet is beginning to understand and remember what we do. Some may think this is “Big Brother-esque,” but ultimately it is simplifying our lives.
As cities start becoming blanketed with free or public wi-fi, our “always on” culture will become more and more dependent upon the Internet and its ever expanding advancements.
Mark, you recently posted an entry about how you had forgotten how to write. Could it be that you have forgotten how to use the Internet?
Would enjoy hearing your response: http://monopolizedchaos.evereffect.com
44. Mark,
You are way off on this one. As the TechCrunch poll would indicate with a majority of readers thinking you are kidding. Techcrunch is an advanced base of internet users too.
Furthermore if you ask the average internet user if the internet is dead and boring they will disagree with you vehemently. Why because they are able to communicate, create and consume more then ever before and the applications that are getting built to communicate, create and consume are becoming more and more advanced and reaching critical mass faster then every before. As a business owner the internet continues to change how we market, sell, process and develop our business model.
How about the evolution on SaaS business model. Only a few years ago software was rolled out in versions, remember? Now software is being dynamically updated with new features being rolled out every week, month, etc...
The next web trends that will affect the internet include how we use applications in online / offline environments, how we collect data offline and how we continue to consume and create content. Since the web is very close to being a mobile platform as well with web enabled handsets getting closer to critical mass this will continue to evolve and change how we embrace and use the internet in our daily lives.
45. What a boring post. Of course its a utility. And of course most of what happens on the internet is 'an application just like Excel'. But claiming it (the internet) is dead is ridiculous. The innnovation that has been spawned by companies exploring 'internet OS' types of development is amazing. It renders the notion that Bill and MS are the only game in town, equally ridiculous.
There is so much going on worldwide in terms of development for applications on the internet that perhaps Mark is just overwhelmed. Or maybe he just revels in making ridiculous and boring statements to attract attention.
Posted at 5:18PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Allen Anderson
46. How does the US look when:
+ residential broadband goes from 50% to 75%
+ phone broadband from 1% to 50%
+ consumer electronics and cars come online
+ pioneer states give 100% broadband access
+ areas like healthcare, education govt catch up
+ download speeds get 5x better and upload 10x
We might have hit the first plateau. But the higher part of the mountain is still ahead. Usually easier/quicker to get to the first plateau, so maybe the next phase doesn't have the acceleration of the first one, but are we really anywhere close to what the Internet will ultimately enable?
47. I work at an internet measurement company that gives me a magnified view of internet interaction on a daily basis. I have some things to say about this:
http://ebjones.typepad.com
Posted at 6:51PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Eric Jones
48. No matter what speed the bandwith/thruput becomes, it is still 'content' that is king and what truly counts. Our minds can only handle so much vipid, immature facebook junk and I'd wait a long time to get especially good content...even if it's is just a good ol' book. No Mark, the Internet isn't boring or dead, just some of the people on it are.
Posted at 8:03PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Richard Royce
49. mark, i just don't know why your comments made such a "noise" neither why you put so much of your time on them... it's happening to the internet like it happened to the tv, the movies, the radio, the newspapers, the books, the photography and each and every mass media. everyt new media is exciting at the beginning until it finds its own field where it can not be replaced at all.
Posted at 10:39PM on Aug 26th 2007 by hector cano
50. The Internet has become boring to those of us who are saturated in the Web 2.O variations. Real innovation won't happen, as you say, until the bandwidth increases substantially across the board. Truly innovative applications can't be managed on a 5 or 6 MB connection. My cable ISP is touting that as a huge benefit. Look! we've increased your bandwidth from 4 to 6 MBs. That is unless some other folks in your neighborhood are doing something besides reading email. It's pathetic.
The problem is that we have handed access over to a few major players that have only profit in mind and that means strangling bandwidth while raising prices. Profit is a good thing. But there are ways of making it that promote growth in other sectors. The model we have now does not do that.
51. I think we need advancement in actual physical technology. Virtual reality has yet to happen. Imagine the possiblities with that. I would like to know if the idea is basically dead or are there people working on this and actually putting big money into it.
Posted at 11:49PM on Aug 26th 2007 by Brett
52. I completely agree mark.
I am not exactely sure of what people's expectation of the internet are these days. The internet is what is, an information super highway, nothing more nothing less.
Sure the few novelty web sites, facebook, myspace, or google will always have a venue on the internet. However, there is no real true ingenuity happening on the net. Napster was the last real invention and that was over years ago.
I cannot think of anything I want to do on the net that is not at my disposal today, I guess I have low expectations of what the net can offer.
Posted at 12:14AM on Aug 27th 2007 by Scott R
54. The Internet as a Platform Will Continuously Evolve
Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA franchise, and Chairman of HDNet, the richest blogger in the world claims The Internet is Dean and Boring days ago in his blog. Why? Here is his reason: Every new technological, mechanical or intellectual breakthrough has its day, days, months and years. But they don’t rule forever. That’s the reality… Just like wheels, printing presses, cars, TV, radio, electricity, water…Its very difficult to develop applications on a platform that is ever changing…
Well, Mark Cuban draws a wrong conclusion though his observations are right. Why?
1. The slow adoption of high-speed broadband during past 5 years in the US is not a problem of the Internet, or the proof of the Internet innovation stalls, it is a matter of domestic policy issues
2. From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, the Internet has demonstrated its continuous evolution as a great platform in endorsing lot of application-level innovations, such as Wiki, Blog, Social Networking, Podcast, just to name a few
3. The continuously evolving of the Internet is good instead of bad, actually the innovation of the Internet itself is not fast enough, and that is why we call for Internet 2.0 to serve upcoming Web 3.0 better
Frontier Blog - search but not REsearch
http://www.hwswworld.com/wp
Posted at 5:11AM on Aug 27th 2007 by edward
55. So I've been on holidays for a few days and was just catching up on my reading (live.com is my rss reader -works great)
I came across a post on Mark Cuban's blog from last week
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/08/24/the-internet-is-dead-and-boring/
Dude...what are you doing? Are you crazy we haven't even scratched the surface of what a permanent omnipresent network can do for our lives.
Yeh sure it's easy to point to the web and say 'whats new' (and I totally agree about your comments on web 2.0 - it's just a change of fonts and some java & ror programming tricks) but saying that this is it 'as far as you personally can see' is like saying once Rome settled on a standardised road format that all roads here and ever after will be more or less the same (and yes I think even the Italians will agree that some other countries evolved on the original concept and produced something even better).
I know for a fact that once the internet evolves from a person to machine transaction platform to a machine to machine fabric we will be able to implement far more radical applications into our lives.
It may not seem like a big difference but think of it like going from Atomic Fusion to Atomic Fission. Pretty much the same thing but with radically different outcomes and even bigger ramifications to the wider world (global warming, world peace, less reliance on middle east oil etc).
We here at http://www.cognation.net/ are working on some amazing web application concepts that hopefully will change your mind about what the internet 'will finally evolve into'.
Mark I know you have to make 'wide sweeping statements' to get peoples attention but you need to choose your targets more widely.
Cheers,
Dean
Posted at 8:59AM on Aug 27th 2007 by Dean Collins
56. The greatest advanced in the Internet happen when the end user gets more bandwidth. Look at how the web grew once dial up modems got faster. Look what happened when AOL and other dial up comps hit it big. Look what happened when DSL got popular. Look what happened when cable got faster.
Mr. Cuban. You speak about "the Internet" from an American POV. What is your take in "the Internet" users in other countries?
Do you think the Internet is boring to East Africans who are just getting access to the Internet?
Do you think the Internet is boring to Japan users with 30000Mbps connections?
Posted at 9:02AM on Aug 27th 2007 by Eric Atkins
57. Mark,
The Internet may not have much more to offer in it's capacity as the global Wide Area Network (WAN) standard. But within the WAN itself there is a hell of a lot happening. Let's take the Web realm for example. The emergence of the Semantic Data Web (see: http://dbpedia.org) as the database aspect of the Web is akin to the introduction of Databases to desktop computing era. The ability to traverse a Web of Data Links as opposed to Document Links (what most do today) is a really really big deal!
Links:
1. http://dbpedia.org
2. http://linkeddata.org
3. Various live demos from my public blog (as per site URL above).
Posted at 9:52AM on Aug 27th 2007 by Kingsley Idehen
58. Good blog post! I'm glad the internet has reached boringness, or as we might put it, maturity. The dot-com frenzy really took us far away from the reality of it, which is that it should join other functional devices in our life. ATMs. Telephones. Cars. It's healthy to have it at this hypeless state, because now we can focus on making it function better instead of getting lost in web2.0 hype.
Posted at 10:55AM on Aug 27th 2007 by Chris Borokowski
59. Hi Mark,
Hindsight is mostly 20-20. Hope you're working on the next big thing to better the Internet.
Rahul
Posted at 2:07PM on Aug 27th 2007 by Rahul
60. Mark, I don't agree with everything you have said, a slowdown is far from an extinction. And remember that what the internet also allows people to do is innovate in the offline world- the one where there are living, breathing, people.
Also, although social platforms have risen in popularity, they are still far from reaching the masses, there are those folks who just over the past year or so, started "googling", believe it or not. That is and of itself, small though it may seem, is a breakthrough.
Rebecca D. Levinson- Connect2Agent.com
Posted at 5:41PM on Aug 27th 2007 by Rebeccaq Levinson
41. Exactly!!!
Internet is boring now. i have been using it for more than 5 years and nowhere i get the feel as it was in the first year for me.
lots of online applications come around and goes just to pass time. nothing impresses and lots of confusion one over the other and takes time to spend time on it.
now a days i hate to use internet or being online in gtalk or yahoo. everything became easy like talking to people overseas, browsing movies, pictures etc....
but still i am not happy being online.. and i dont know why...
Posted at 1:25PM on Aug 26th 2007 by beyondwork