End of PeeCees?

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: End of PeeCees?
>   From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
>   Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:58:01 -0700 (PDT)
>     To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>
>> On today's BBC "Analysis", there's a little segment on the issue of
>> personal computers being obsolete because of the rise of The Internet.
>> Supposedly, we're going to be using our televisions or mobile phones in
>> place of them.  The whole segment hinges on the statement of MS that the
>> desktop PC is dead and that the future is The Internet and we'd all better
>> get used to it.
>
>This whole "the Internet is the Platform" is rather amusing when you think
>about it.  It's basically Mainframe thinking.  It's also about taking
>control of peoples data away from them, and transferring ownership of that
>data to the corporations.
>
>Granted you have plenty of people that use computers to play games, surf,
>do email, and *maybe* a little light word processing or spreadsheet usage. 
>They could care less about thier data or thier privicy.  
>
>OTOH, you have those of us that are writing software, articles, and books,
>or creating music and video.  You also have people with either very slow, or
>no internet access.  Plus there are the people that just value their
>privacy.
>
>While the first group might sucker into this "Internet is the Platform", how
>many of the second group will?
>
>For certain types of users, it might make sense, but one size does not fit
>all.  Take for example the computers available right now that are targeted
>at home use.  You have handhelds, mini-laptops, laptops, giant-laptops,
>desktops, mini-systems, and power-user setups, video game consoles and
>set-top boxes.  Each of these is a computer, each has its own "niche". 
>While some can be replaced by others, others can't.  For example very few
>laptops come even close to being able to take the place of a "power-user
>setup", yet a mini-system, video game console, and set-top box are largely
>the same system and could largely be replaced by the "Internet is the
>Platform" idea.
>
>Am I making sense, or just rambling, who knows.  All I know is that I'm not
>the least bit interested in the "Internet is the Platform", and I'm beating
>that there are a lot of other people that feel that way.  At the same time I
>fear the corporations and governments might just force this down our
>throats.
>
>		Zane

Didn't the promoter named Barnum that suggested that betting on peoples 
stupidity was a a safe bet.

For a lot of "stuff" to me the net is a platfom and free storage.  For 
other things it's a minefield of security issues. I still remember when 
Geocities got picked up and every ones "content" was deemed the new 
owners property.

Besides even with DSL I don't care If I had 200gb out there free and secure
as it's too SLOW compared to the local disks on my p166.  



Allison