[ih] GOSIP & compliance

[Bob Purvy]

LOL.

*  "How is y*our... Internet ever going to make money, when its services
are free?"

reminds me of the line in *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*


*  "Who's going to drive on your... 'freeway' when the Red Car costs a
nickel?"*



On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 12:50 PM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via
Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> I remember reading this historical perspective and it was pretty accurate.
>
> I could add a couple of first hand experiences with France Telecom,
> Minitel, Transpac and VTCOM.
>
> In 1997 I had a meeting with top level executives of France Telecom,
> Transpac and VTCOM, discussing an Internet project. All the way then,
> the suited people I had in front of me, then a young postgraduate, were
> obviously very proud of the Minitel's success. I would say, too proud,
> to the extent that they were completely blinded by it - and as a
> Frenchman, I can say that it's sometimes a trait that we have in France
> - national pride, for better or for worse.
>
> In this case, it was for worse. I told them the Minitel was on life
> support, based on a technology that was developed in the 70s. I knew
> everything about its limitations, including its intended evolution
> through Broadband ISDN - B-ISDN, which was also going to be a non
> starter due to its lack of flexibility and top down control. But that
> fell on deaf ears: Transpac was France's National Pride, a stable
> network running on X.25. VTCOM was the main supplier/controller of
> content - serving millions of paying customers. Why would they need to
> look at anything else than their pride and joy? I told them Transpac was
> on its last legs due to its inability to support faster transfer speeds.
> And top down control of all content was not scalable. The Internet was
> the future. A decentralised network where everyone could produce
> content. The laughter around the room was not hidden. "With the Minitel
> we make a lot of money because people pay for their services. How is
> your... Internet ever going to make money, when its services are free?
> Nobody has ever made any money giving things away for free. You are
> living in a dream world. An anglo saxon dream world. Not everyone speaks
> English, you know?"
> After an hour and fifteen minutes, I was promptly kicked out of their
> office. They weren't disrespectful, but didn't hide the fact that they
> had a strategy and it definitely wasn't mine.
> I won't share the names, but these were added to a long long list of
> people suffering the Peter principle that I have met in my life.
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
> (with apologies for answering an old thread - I have been very busy am
> just catching up)
>
> On 20/03/2022 19:53, Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history wrote:
> > For some historical perspective: In 1994 we published an article about
> Minitel
> > in ConneXions--The Interoperability Report. It's the first article in
> the April
> > issue. The entire archive of ConneXions is available from the Charles
> Babbage
> > Institute, but for easy access to this particular issue I've uploaded a
> copy
> > to my directory on Yikes.
> >
> > See:
> >
> > https://www.yikes.com/~ole/store/ConneXions8-04_Apr1994.pdf  <
> https://www.yikes.com/~ole/store/ConneXions8-04_Apr1994.pdf>
> >
> > Ole
> >
> >> On Mar 20, 2022, at 09:45, Bob Purvy via Internet-history<
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org>  wrote:
> >>
> >> Well, don't people in France ever want to look up numbers in Germany,
> >> England, and Italy?
> >>
> >> Also, there were lots of other apps on top of Minitel, including a
> dating
> >> service! It did replace calls for directory assistance, but then people
> >> discovered it could do a lot of other things, too.
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 9:41 AM John Levine<johnl at iecc.com>  wrote:
> >>
> >>> It appears that Bob Purvy via Internet-history<bpurvy at gmail.com>
> said:
> >>>> One still wonders why the other European PTTs didn't do their own and
> >>>> interoperate with Minitel. Too much NIH?
> >>> Remember that the business case for Minitel was that it would replace
> >>> paper phone books and directory assistance operators.  Everything else
> >>> was an add-on.  You didn't need to interoperate to do that.
> >>>
> >>> R's,
> >>> John
> >>>
> > Ole J. Jacobsen
> > Editor and Publisher
> > The Internet Protocol Journal
> > Office: +1 415-550-9433
> > Cell:   +1 415-370-4628
> > Web: protocoljournal.org
> > E-mail:olejacobsen at me.com
> > E-mail:ole at protocoljournal.org
> > Skype: organdemo
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
> http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
> --
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>