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From: mandel@well.UUCP (Tom Mandel)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: what if....
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Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 15:14:00 EDT
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Posted: Sat Oct 17 15:14:00 1987
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Miles Fidelman writes:

> If and when networking becomes widely available to the general public, what
> effects will it have on the way we organize our political and economic
> activities?

One rather likely consequence, it seems to me, is that widely available 
networking will do much to empower special interest groups, both in 
the political sense and in economic terms.  In the former domain, the work
of Dave Hughes in Colorado is illuminating.  Also of interest is the 
enormous response from the world of networking to the proposed FCC ruling 
to remove the current exemption for computer communications from
requirements for access charges.  While the number of individuals involved 
in networking today is a very small fraction of the population -- 1% 
at best -- the FCC was innundated with complaints about its proposal.

	This sort of instant political activism -- with considerable clout, 
since early networkers are likely to come from socioeconomic groups with 
high political leverage -- seems like to grow significantly in the
rather near future.

	On the economic or business front, there are at least two 
issues to consider.  First, there is how networking will affect the world 
of work.  The literature in this regard is extensive, focusing (incorrectly, 
in my view, on the impacts of more people working out their homes.  A more 
interesting consequences is that networking facilitates the emergence of 
all sorts of information-oriented businesses at the grass roots level.  
Watch the number of high-level special interest BBS and CC (computer 
conferencing) systems emerge as hardware prices drop and software improves.

	The other issue I am thinking about is that of consumption, i.e., 
using computer networking to find and buy things.  There is already some 
evidence that network-aided shopping is going to work out, although perhaps 
not for the mass markets.  I don't expect it to become a major channel of 
distribution for many years to come, but will certainly serve special
interest markets as an adjunct to other, existing channels.

  Tom Mandel	mandel@kl.sri.com	well!mandel