Early Internet Pioneer Claims The Internet Is Broken... But Oh Look, He's Selling The 'Solution'

from the marketers-dream dept

If I announced tomorrow that some key technology in widespread use today was fundamentally broken, but (oh yeah) that I was selling a solution that would fix it all, don't you think most reporters would first try to track down an independent third party to find out if what I was saying was actually true? Apparently not all reporters feel that way. So take it with a grain of salt when PC Authority writes a gushing article about how one of the internet's original designers, Larry Roberts, claims the internet is fundamentally broken. Roberts has been pushing this line for a while, and it's rather important to note that this is part of the marketing campaign for his company, which is trying to sell a "solution" to the problem. Yet PC Authority focuses entirely on the idea that the internet is broken, checks with no other third party, and only mentions at the very, very end of the article that Roberts' company just happens to be trying to sell a solution. Whether or not you believe Roberts' claims, you would think that a reporter wouldn't put what seems like a blatant press release and pitch it as a news article without at least getting some third party opinions.

Filed Under: infrastructure, internet, larry roberts