Compare to what I wrote in 1982 when in charge of the network architecture of the first electronic newspaper in the US:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2702791&cid=39217853 That was for the now-defunct Knight-Ridder News Service at the Mami Herald. Oh, and by the way 1981-1983 I was the local support team leader in Miami for the Space Studies Institute sponsoring public awareness events about space settlement. Some punk gave his valedictorian speech on space settlement during Miami Palmetto Senior High School's 1982 graduation ceremonies. I don't know why I bring up this ancient history. It can't be nearly as relevant to current events as a 2009 essay. On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > This is well written. It was published in 2009. See: > > > http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ > > QUOTE: > > The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet > coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they > needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with > not just one plan but several. One was to partner with companies like > America Online . . . > > As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the merits > of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? Shouldn’t we > try a carrot-and-stick approach, with educationand prosecution? And so on. > In all this conversation, there was one scenario that was widely regarded > as unthinkable, a scenario that didn’t get much discussion in the nation’s > newsrooms, for the obvious reason. > > The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to > share content wouldn’t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would prove > unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiencies, and therefore > profits.. . . . > > [To summarize, newspapers would go out of business] > > . . . Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary > times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen > as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are > viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, > however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking > out the window and noticing that the real world increasingly resembled the > unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking > mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and > enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were > regarded not as charlatans but saviors. > > When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an > industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the > temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening > are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en bloc. > . . ." > > - Jed > >
