The Internet Slum: is abandoning the Internet the next big thing? (2004)

Is Abandoning the Internet “The Next Big Thing”? by John Walker As a venture capitalist who invests in high tech, I have to worry that the web will be perceived as an increasingly corrupt police state overlying a maze of dark alleys and unsafe practices outside the rule of law. The public and many corporations will be reluctant to embrace a technology fraught with such problems. The Internet economy will continue to grow, but it will do so at a much slower pace than forecast by industry analysts. Jacques Vallee, The Heart of the Internet , p. 162 Bad Neighbourhood In 1970–1971 I used to live in a really bad neighbourhood. In the space of two years I was held up three times, twice by the same guy. (One's sense of etiquette fails in such circumstances—what do you say: “New gun?”) Once I found a discarded sofa cushion outside my apartment building and, being perennially short on seating for guests, rescued it from the trash man. After bringing it inside and whacking it to liberate som ... Read full article.