The Failure Of Broadband
from the my-favorite-topic dept
I've obviously talked about this topic quite a bit, due to my own experiences, but Business 2.0 has an interesting article looking at the failures of broadband. The beginning of the article tries (unwisely) to tie it into the recent bankruptcy of Global Crossing, but quickly gets beyond all that. They point out the real problem with broadband: there simply isn't a compelling application out there that makes it worth it for many consumers to spend more than double their dial-up fees. The article then points out that Napster was a compelling application that could have driven broadband adoption, and jumpstarted many other parts of the economy, but the music industry stopped that one dead in its tracks. The article makes the interesting argument that the companies that are trying to get the government to stimulate broadband growth should be pushing for copyright reform that would allow things like Napster to thrive. It's an idea worth thinking about.
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