Is doom rolling toward the Internet as we know it?
For Mark Cuban the threat is our insatiable need for more and more bandwidth:
Sure, new bandwidth is being added on networks every day. But guess what, our ability to consume bandwidth is growing far, far faster than the speed at which it is being added… The bigger and more powerful our PCs become, the more specialized processors that are enabled with internet connectivity, the more bandwidth we all consume.
Meanwhile, in Jakob Nielsen’s nightmares, so much Internet revenue gets picked up by giant search engines that there’s nothing left for the people who create web content:
There’s no doubt that search engines provide a valuable service to users. The issue here is what search engines do to the companies they feed on — the companies that fund the creation of original information. Search engines mainly build their business on other websites’ content. The traditional analysis has been that search engines amply return the favor by directing traffic to these sites. While there’s still some truth to that, the scenario is changing…Paid search confiscates too much of a website’s value.
Are you starting to flash on one of those Jolt-Cola nightmares where your web-powered Indiana Jones persona starts getting chased by a huge Katamari Damacy* rolling ball?
The truth is, lots of people have created real value all over the huge gift economy of “The Internet as we know it.” And lots of other people are working for changes that will let them roll up that value into their own pockets.
I’m glad that two such different web-giants are having such similar nightmares.
* I found this via Boing Boing. Bonus link: Google results for all their Katamari Damacy blogging.