Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Internet Mythology

It's a side-comment in a longer rant, but clears up a myth--one which compares to "housing values will NEVER decline."

In the 1990s the essence of the scam was the claim that The Internet is doubling in size every three months. It was: for about six months in the late summer of 1995 and through the early spring of 1996. I know because I was running the Chicagoland area's largest ISP at the time, had access to the core Internet routing tables and was forced into buying hardware to keep up with the expansion of processing power and memory required to keep track of it. The driver of this crazy expansion was the release of Windows 95, which for the first time made connecting to the Internet a "non-technical" accomplishment. But by the end of 1996 the expansion rate was slowing substantially and into 1997 and 1998 the rate of growth, while still substantial, was more akin to a "growing nicely" industry - simply because virtually every PC out there was already online.

HT: Market Ticker

2 comments:

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

Guess there is no need for the government to provide "internet access for everyone"

TerryN said...

Remember those who like to call themselves progressives wanted Milwaukee to pony up for wireless access all over the city? Oh, we would be so cool! Except nobody would need it today.