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Subject: Reaction of JP Barlow on Bandwidth and Content
From: marleen <marleen@waag.org>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:23:07 METDST

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Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:02:51 +0100 To: bandwidth@waag.org
From: John Perry Barlow <barlow@eff.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Bandwidth and Content

At 10:11 AM -0400 7/14/97, Eric Kluitenberg wrote:
>Bandwidth and Content
>In the context of the 'We Want Bandwidth!' public research by the
Society for Old and New Media @ Hybrid Workspace, documenta x -
Kassel, July 12, 1997.


Thank you for a very thoughtful and concise statement, with which I
agree in nearly every particular. (I hope this doesn't tarnish your
reputation with other Nettimers...)

I do take small issue with a couple of points.

First, I have yet to see much evidence that

>Within those regions of the earth where bandwidth is expanding
rapidly the big players in the media and entertainment industry are
much better equipped to seize the larger part of the audience, with
well designed, engaging programs and services.

While this is certainly true in theory, it fails to take into account
the cultural difficulties that large "industrial" media organizations
encounter with the culture of the Net - and, though it comes in many
local flavors, I believe that Cyberspace has a discernible culture and
will continue to.

In any event, I can't think of a single Web initiative by an existing
media giant that isn't massively hemorrhaging investment capital. I
think companies like Time Warner and Disney are about as likely to
control webcasting as the steamship and railroad companies were to
seize the infant air transport industry.

Secondly, while there is a rough correlation between bandwidth and
attention, they are not the same. As Nicholas Negroponte pointed out,
a wink is only one bit. This is why e-mail continues to be
overwhelmingly text based despite the ability of many systems to
easily carry voice and video messages. (I have a NeXTcube that could
easily incorporate voice into a message clear back in 1989. Most NeXT
users never sent more than about five voice messages, even though we
generally had plenty of bandwidth and storage at our disposal.)

In other words, I would reckon that e-mail, by far the largest
component of Net traffic, will remain largely text-based for the rest
of my life. Indeed, one of the most prolific and visible Net posters
and e-mailists I know is a former CIA analyst who still uses the same
IBM XT and 2400 baud modem he bought back in 1985. He could afford far
more, but he likes the discipline required by these limitations. And
indeed, they are not so limiting. Would Das Kapital have been more
influential had it contained a gig or so of QuickTime clips?

That said, I do believe that although the currency of the future is
attention, and it will often be expressed and traded as bandwidth.
People will fight over bandwidth as they have fought over money, sex,
power, water, drugs, or any of the other things of which it could be
said that "the more you have, the shorter it feels."

Social inequity, except in the most desperate conditions, is often
more a matter of perceived unfairness of distribution than a survival
need for the goods being distributed. In the places I've been where
*everybody* is poor and where there are no televisions to taunt the
natives with the "good life" in "Dallas" or "Santa Barbara," the
general level of contentment seems higher than anywhere I go in
America. But the moment they become aware of how much "more" other
humans have, the riots begin.

Perhaps the greatest favor we could grant the unwired world would be
to encourage them not to chain themselves to the never-ending desire
for more.


****************************************************************
John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow
MegaPhone: 800/654-4322
Barlow in Meatspace Today: Philadelphia 215/563-1600
Coming soon to: Philadelphia 7/14-16, New York City 7/17-18,
Cambridge, MA 7/18-20, New York City, 7/20-27, London 7/27-31, The
Dark Continent...

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