Don't get me wrong. I am happy when big and important corporations handle their business matters with skill and confidence, ensuring we live in the world we want to live in, allowing their transactions to be taxed healthily to continue the glory that is the modern socialist state. But sometimes they do come across as a little creepy:
"The network is the new platform," he says.
What does that mean in real life?
"It's the capability of consumers to access any content on any device at any time from any location on any kind of network," says Mr Chambers in a well-rehearsed sound bite. "It does not matter whether the movie is on your Flip [video camera], in the [internet storage] cloud, on your home server or with Disney, all you want is to get the content on your device... you don't want to know where it is," he adds.
Organ music. Somewhere there is organ music when people say something like that. Or a DUM-dum-dum-duuuuummmm. Maybe a brief close of of the speaker's twitching right eye, too. That's how you know who the baddies are. They don't get a good night's sleep. They have twitchy eyes.
Comments
Chris Taylor - April 23, 2009 9:58 AM
I don't hear organ music, but I do hear the ghosts of Pets.com, Flooz, WebMD and a million other shades of dot-bombs rattling their ghostly chains. Some guys just never learn from the past.
Well I care where the data is. If it's on my home server, I'm not being charged per use, like I would be if it's in the cloud or with Disney. Home is fault-tolerant, my throughput doesn't get tanked by 2 million other folks all trying to get the same data at the same time, I can watch it over a multitude of wired and wireless devices right now, and, should the content go off-line (through DDoS attack, legal dispute, technical SNAFU, dwindling customer base, whatever), I'm still able to access it on the home network or (in the worst case) via several iterations of the nightly network backup.
So yeah, it kinda does matter. "The cloud" and "the vendor" are not half as reliable and convenient as they think they are. They forget that more than half of the crap that gets provided online eventually goes away, because subscribers dry up, or the business model sucks, or new developments make it easier to do the same thing with less hassle. Once 60% of your user base dries up, are you going to keep maintaining those servers and their pipes in perpetuity? Of course not. And then Joe User will have to go out and buy his movie on Blu-Ray to see it, just like he should have done the first time around.
Exhibit A: Just ask anybody who used to access the old Usenet groups via their Canadian ISP. Usenet's still around... but the ISPs unilaterally decided to axe that service. If you want it, you've got to subscribe to some 3rd-party provider now.
Exhibit B: Microsoft Encarta premium subscriptions. Who is going to pay a wad of coin to look junk up, when you can troll through Wikipedia (and get the gist of it, if not a few key citations to actual published sources) for free?
So, nice try fellas. We've heard that line before.
seanie - April 23, 2009 10:29 AM
Being forced by Bell Canada (A subsidiary of Davros Corp) to live with Dialup indefinitely, I must have any entertainment content I wish to peruse on my own device. I cannot stream worth beans. This has for the past 4.0 years made me reflect on the "cloud" etc and realize that I want my stuff on my Hard Drive. I do not wish to be able to open my laptop in the middle of the woods and watch last nights ep of Torchwood. I am not so impatient and boring that I need instant visual and aural gratification 24/7/wherever.
I add this to the list of things that are causing the downfall of polite proper society, such as Crocs, children calling adults by their first name and those dumb looking blue glowing bluetooth earpieces.
Chris Taylor - April 23, 2009 10:37 AM
BTW, there's an easy bullshit test for crazy net ideas. There are only four business models that ever make any money on the web:
1) Selling physical or virtual product (the Amazon/iTunes model). At best, you end up with a quality reusable product. At worst, you end up with DRMed or hardware-locked crap that will only work with equipment from a certain vendor, and when that vendor goes belly-up, your investment is wasted.
2) Periodic subscription (the ISP/Porn/MMO model). At best, you end up with enjoyment from hours spent with the product. At worst, you have blown a lot of money over a large span of time, and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
3) Advertiser pays (the Broadcaster/Banner Ad model). At best, you get a "free" service underwritten by loads of ad middlemen who want to put stuff in front of your eyeballs. At worst, you get shovelled a load of lousy programming or services because you, the consumer, exercise exactly zero fiscal leverage over those generating the product/service.
4) Pay-per-use (the Long Distance Calling model). I lied, there are only three web business models that work. There is no successful pay-per-use net business. This model only works in the real world, for public bathrooms, or on TV, for boxing and monster truck rallies.
Whenever somebody sets off your "DUM-dum-dum-duuuuummmm" alarm, imagine the business plan implementing one of those three models. Then ask yourself "which approach would I, as a consumer, personally commit dollars to?" See if that matches the approach taken by the company. If not, it is going to tank and the only "DUM-dum-dum-duuuuummmm" moment they are going to have is when the CFO announces 80% staff layoffs.