Mark,
I disagree completely. The phone is, indeed, a merket-enabling technology.
Whether you wish it to be used as a method to be targeted for selling to
you, the potential is there... the market is enabled.
The method in which the potential is used has little to do with the
potential which is created. The IH system and, indeed, the phone, could be
used for many things. Market pressure and public acceptance form the
manner in which it is used. You do not get solicitaition calls at home
after 9:00pm because public pressure has instituted regulations to that
effect. The capability is there.
Now, I am not advocating either a strict set of regulations nor a
free-for-all. I am only suggesting that the Internet IS a market-enabling
technology - the market will form itself in time based on the demand
pressure metered by public acceptance.
Gene...Hi Cthulhu's Little Helper, you wrote on 6/28/99 11:39:04 PM:
>
>On 29 June 1999, Gene Marsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Rhonda,
>
>You may be missing the point.
>
>The Internet is not a merket, any more than the Interstate Highway system
>is a market. It IS, however, a market-enabling technology, just as the
>Interstate Highway system is. Without it, our economy would not be nearly
>as robust as it is.
>
>In a similar manner, the Internet is poised to become that market-enabling
>infrastructure. The parallels are not all perfect, but the analogy is
>still accurate. Without either, there is the potential for market
>collapse
>or diminishment.
>
>
>The net is no more a market-enabling technology than the phone is. I mean
>that literally. As in, the phone enables me to make more effective use
>of vendors, but that's it. I don't want people selling me things over
>the phone in an unsolicited manner. I don't want people 'narrowcasting'
>products to my phone based on my demographics. I'll decide how, and when,
>and with whom, I use my phone. And I'll decide who my carrier is. And
>I'll decide, to a certain extent, how my phone number is to be used.
>
>We've already seen 50+ years of commercial interests trying to co-opt our
>personal information. I won't sit idly by and let them subsume this
>particular technology to suit their ends.
>
>--
> Mark C. Langston
>
+++++++++++++++++++++
I'm very happy @.HOME
Gene Marsh
president, anycastNET Incorporated
