Why this “Internet thing” is just starting and bandwidth
Seth Godin gives us 10 reasons why the Internet is just getting into gears and looking for a bright future. While I agree with most of his points, #2 is giving me some problem:
“2. Bandwidth. It’s easy to forget how horrible modem surfing was. The prevalence of high bandwidth connectivity means that surfing is far more natural, more frequent and that the experience is better as well.”
The thing is, bandwidth comes in all sorts of “flavors” now. Back in the day, BBS had to support 300 bauds, 2400, 14400 and up to 56 Kbps. Pretty soon, you couldn’t connect with less then a 2400. There was a spread between the slowest and fastest access, but not as large as today. We still have 56 Kbps modems, there’s 128 Kbps adls, 1.5, 3, 8 Mbps, etc. How fast are wifi and cellphones links ? Actually, same goes for screen sizes. There’s the 160×160 screen and the 1600×1600 screen. The challenge is to provide a decent service over a large spectrum of uses. Otherwise, things aren’t really improving, only moving too fast and leaving too many people behind.
