Video is NOT the future of the Web. (This picture, by the way, comes from a fine student project at the University of North Carolina on Webcasting rights. Go Tar Heels.)
It’s part of the future, no doubt. It’s even part of the present.
But the assumptions that Internet traffic is growing mainly in response to video, that Internet-capable networks must give video 99% of their capacity, or that Internet Law must be changed to accommodate video are fictions.
The Video Fictions are relics of the pre-Internet age. They’re wrong for three reasons:
- Video is passive -- When you’re watching a video you’re watching, you’re not interacting. The Internet is all about interaction. It’s about ideas. It’s about interruptibility. It’s about cutting your attention into as many pieces as you can, multi-tasking in order to do more. Video takes all your attention, and demand for it is limited by audience attention.
- Video is expensive -- A quality blog item, like this one, can be created by one person in a few hours. A quality video takes the work of many people over many days, and bad video takes just as much time to make as good video. You can’t have both good video and interactive video. Good video just takes too long to make.
- Video has plenty of channels – Most of your cable bill is taken up by worthless nonsense already. There isn’t enough quality programming to fill the DirecTv and Dish Network satellites. Broadcasting has worked for almost 90 years. All these deliver more programming at far less cost than the Internet ever could. The Internet, as a video medium, is best served for tiny niches, with low demand, and it already does this.
The assumption that “the future of the Internet is video” is driving just about all the stupidity we see among big companies and policymakers today.
There are video applications which have value on the Internet, but they don’t need the bandwidth or Quality of Service (QoS) up-sells of true video. Videoconferences are of value (sometimes) and video VOIP calls can be of value (to long-separated family members). But the idea that we need the Internet to watch the same TV that comes to us via satellite and cable is nonsense.
There are also some applications that can use QoS standards, and payments. Interactive games can use QoS, especially when players are going against one another in real time. Medical applications can use QoS, although those applications that really need it should be done in clinics or hospitals with ample bandwidth, not the home.
Meanwhile, there is an enormous, and growing bandwidth shortage in the average Internet home. I face it every day. Why?
- Multiple users – We’re an average family but we all do our thing. Two workers and two kids doing homework will crowd the average broadband line. Cable has no provision for multiple lines to a home, and I shouldn’t have to buy two phone lines, either.
- Multitasking – I frequently have a half-dozen or more windows open at any time. I have two browsers, three IM programs, and my Mailwasher program goes to check for messages every two minutes. Something is usually going on.
I know what I’d do with more bandwidth. I’d open more windows. I’d do real conferencing, not just a back-and-forth, and we’d talk. I would love to be able to keep in closer touch with my family and friends, and the PC (whether laptop or desktop) is the place to do it. But that requires a lot of open channels, using a variety of software packages. The Internet is the best way to coordinate all this.
And we haven’t even talked (yet) about Always On applications, using your wireless LAN as an application platform, checking your health, your security, your environment, and your stuff. There are enormous fortunes to be made in these applications, but they won’t be made so long as bandwidth is given out with an eye-dropper, at ever-increasing prices, in order to maintain the fiction that all we really want from the Internet is TV.
Until the Video Fiction is shattered, American technology will continue to deteriorate, on both the supply and demand sides.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Brad Hutchings on January 18, 2006 08:56 PM writes...
If there is one huge problem with your argument it's this: given out with an eye-dropper, at ever-increasing prices. It's just plain wrong. Consumer DSL is effectively $25/month now, down from $60-ish two years ago. Small business DSL (which you can have at your home) is about $200 for 768 symmetric DSL, $250 for T1 speeds if you're close enough to the telco's central office for it to work. This is down from $400 and unavailable just 2 years ago. If you work at home and derive your income from the Internet, you should have bizniss sDSL at at least 384 kbps (about $150 through Earthlink). You can run a mail server, a web server, Skype, AOL IM, 20 web browser windows, downloading TV shows from iTMS, screen sharing, and have bandwidth to spare. It works for me except on days when we release software ;-).
Perhaps the rest of your case is arguable, but the contention that the price of bandwidth is rising is silly. The contention that you can't get enough at your home is false for more than 70% of Americans. If it's worth it to you, you can afford it, or you're on the wrong career path.
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