My guy, Robert X. Cringely, writes a weekly column for PBS.org. I’m not sure why I never mentioned him before. He’s smart, knows the right people in tech, and connects the dots. He’s written some great columns about Google, like this one and this one. Apple, too, as seen here and here.
This week’s column is about how the telcos aren’t looking out for you, how communities should treat internet access as a utility, and what Microsoft should do with the rest of its life.
Frankston points out that we build and finance public infrastructure in a public way using public funds with the goal of benefiting economic, social, and cultural development in our communities. So why not do the same with the Internet, which is an information infrastructure? Well we did that, didn’t we, with the National Information Infrastructure program of the 1990s, which was intended to bring fiber straight to most American homes? About $200 billion in tax credits and incentives went primarily to telephone companies participating in the NII program. What happened with that? [The telcos] took the money, that’s what, and gave us little or nothing in return.
But just because the highway contractor ran off with the money without finishing the road doesn’t mean we can go without roads. It DOES mean, however, that we ought not to buy another road from that particular contractor.
Michael | 30-Jun-06 at 10:22 am | Permalink
He’s always worth reading. Always.
That bit at the end about MSFT giving BRK money was kind of silly but the rest of the article is Good Thinking.
JP | 30-Jun-06 at 11:06 am | Permalink
He must’ve hit on a string of topics I didn’t care about a while ago, because I used to read him every week, and then I just stopped.