An Internet store? Never happen. (Image from sxc.hu)
Here's a blast from the past:
Back in 1995, the Internet was the Big New Thing. Folks were getting used to the idea that you can go to any library anywhere, "talk" to anyone, and experience some of the world without ever leaving your seat.
But to Clifford Stoll, it was just a fad. He offered his views in Newsweek early that year, saying that while the Internet was pretty cool, it wouldn't really catch on or be truly useful.
Stoll said:
"Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."
Stoll wasn't a technophobe. He'd been involved in the online world from the jump. Helped track down some computer crackers who stole military secrets and sold them to the KGB. And he has a little online business going now.
But back then, he knew computers would not replace books or newspapers. He knew it. Check it out:
"How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure."
He said ecommerce wouldn't work all that well because, well, there's little human contact involved. Same thing with the rest of the Internet -- takes away that eyeball-to-eyeball. It's that same dynamic that author John Naisbitt pointed out in the 1982 book Megatrends -- that push-pull between high-tech and high-touch.
Less than two decades after Naisbitt's book, and about five years after Stoll's predictions, high tech won the war.
Still, take a look at Stoll's Newsweek article. While you're about it, read the comments. The whole thing is a hoot.
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Link: Clifford Stoll's Web site.
