[ih] GOSIP & compliance

[Bob Purvy]

As for "potential users" being the whole world, I think that's kinda like
saying that the whole TV-watching audience in 1999 was a "potential user"
of a streaming service.

Why is that the correct analogy? You wouldn't have signed up for Hulu then
if they'd offered it -- your Internet speed was too slow, and your TV was
too crappy, too. And not much of the good content was available.

The same limitations applied to PC users who weren't online in 1985 (like
me, at home). It was just too difficult then. You'd have a 2400 baud modem,
if you were lucky, and then it was a very techie experience to connect to
anything. Mr. and Mrs. Average were never going to do it.

On the other hand, hackers at work with Unix or VAX machines had a much
easier time of it. *They* were the potential audience, and they were using
TCP.

By the way, the Minitel *did* ring all the bells. I used one in Paris in
1989. It was pretty nice, and they had the revenue model down pat. It was
only the PTT's ineptitude, slowth, and narrow-mindedness that kept that
from taking off and selling the OSI model. They didn't even try.

On Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 2:55 PM Clem Cole via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 5:29 PM Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>
> > On 3/19/2022 1:52 PM, Clem Cole via Internet-history wrote:
> > >   There was not a new user base and the old user base
> > > valued what it had.
> >
> >
> > Please forgive my disagreeing again, but there was an enormous,
> > potential user base.  Pretty much the entire world.  The established
> > user base for TCP/IP was relatively small.
> >
> Fair enough and you do have a good point.   But I counter that a
> >>potential user base<< is not a user base.
> Again read Christensen's first book - he is (was) much more eloquent than I
> (and includes a lot of data and graphics from studying this issue).
>
> My point with OSI is that if they had satisfied that new user base, and it
> grew at a faster rate than the established one,
> Christensen says they could have succeeded.  In fact, Christensen's theory
> talks about the disruptive technology
> being  a 'lessor' technology when it first is introduced, but the new user
> base values it while the old user base does not.
> But because the new user base is growing so fast, the money is there to
> improve the new and it will over take the old.
>
> A nice example is how SMS texting took off -- it sucked compared to email
> that you and I grew up with.  But the new user base at the time
> (teens born in the late 80's/early 90s ) had access and didn't care that
> keyboarding was hard or the limit to size of the messages.
> It took off with them - it was something >>they<< valued and that new user
> base took over the old one.
> And as the user base got bigger, it got better -- the devices that could be
> created improved and the issues were less and less a problem.
> Now those devices can do both [although I personally hate sending much
> email from my phone].
>
> My own 20-30 yo kids grew up with it.   Getting my son to read email is
> just not going to happen - if I want to communicate, the best
> I can do is get him to use Signal.  My daughter went to college the same
> way as he did,  but being a computer
> scientist ( and working at Google for a few years),  I think she discovered
> why texting is not as good
> [although she sends Signal style txts to her mom].   That said, she also
> traditionally uses SMS for her non-techie friends.
>
> So to me, the problem is that while the >>potential<< was there as you
> correctly point out.
> The OSI development community did not deliver something that new users
> valued.  They found the old scheme
> (and it worked) so it grew.
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>