Where Have All the Users Gone?

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

Harvard University's Conference on the Internet and Society plows into cutting edge issues that the Net's quickly changing and expanding reality is forcing to the surface. Yet none of the discussion panels focus on that sine que non of the Internet -- the user.

In interviews with participants and panelists, among them some of the Internet's movers and shakers, at times seemed lost in wishful thinking about how widely the Net is used, at times nearly hostile about the users' ability to shape this chaotic electronic beast, and in other moments dreamy-eyed when envisioning a future perhaps crafted by the users for the users. Here's what they said.

Users, users everywhere?

In his keynote address Larry Tesler of Apple Computer Inc. glibly referred to "everybody everywhere" when speaking of who's using the Internet today.

This view, it turns out, may be a bit optimistic. Ken Noda, vice president of the Sumitomo Bank, a Japanese concern, noted that right now Japanese bankers are just beginning to explore how they might use the Internet to do business. "We're talking to companies like Netscape to see how they can help us," he said, and added that the Sumitomo Bank is "not sure yet whether we want to go on[line]."

Michael C. Johnson, JD, a graduate of Harvard Law School who represents investors and financial institutions, warned that he's "not an Internet user" and is at this week's conference to learn about this "dramatically changing technology" in the hopes of being "able to talk to my clients" about the Internet.

Martin Niesenholtz, the president of The New York Times Electronic Media Company noted in his talk in yesterday's "Opening The Gate" panel discussion that "fewer than 10 percent of U.S. households subscribe to an online service."

Should the "everybody everywhere" version of the supposedly ubiquitous Internet be held up as the ideal?

Niesenholtz, as panel speaker, referred boldly to industy's responsibility in this regard: "Internet access needs to be made as easy as using the telephone," he quipped. The high-tech executive noted that costs are too high today, and mentioned entertainment as a possible segue into truly mass use of the Net.

When questioned more closely about user access, Niesenholtz said that it should be made available via "sites at schools, in libraries. We can't have a two-tiered society," he commented.

To pay or not to pay

How shall the many who are not currently connected to the Internet gain access? Should users pay for their access to the Internet?

Here the business (and other) people are split. Niesenholtz thinks that users should pay, but Christine Maxwell, executive vice president and publisher of The McKinley Group, thinks not. Maxwell commented that she views the Internet as "a great democratizing tool." In any event Maxwell thinks that costs are "coming down to increase access. The costs of communications are coming down, as have hardware [costs]," she concluded.

Shikhar Ghosh, chairman of Open Market Inc. ("One of the oldest companies on the Internet -- we're two years old," Ghosh joked in the "Opening the Gate" panel discussion) said that users "should pay for access. You could argue," Ghosh elaborated, "that you can't survive without electricity, but still people pay for it."

Then, seeming to step back from his commentary, he offered that perhaps "Society could subsidize" needy users' access costs, much like the poor get help with their electric bills.

Ghosh also pointed to "plummeting" costs as a way in for the have-nots: "Online services were charging $8 an hour four months ago," he said of the costs beyond the basic monthly fee. "Then local servers started charging $25 to $30 a month."

If cheerful optimism could bring the Internet into every home, then Stephen Dale Messer, assistant director at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, would have it done.

"All you need is a basic computer," Messer said. "Market forces are driving the costs down."

But should access be free? "There is precedence for it," Messer noted, "but it opens a can of worms. Who pays for it?" he pondered.

Some have given years of thought to the universal access issue.

Jim McGee of Diamond Technology Partners has his doctorate in electronic commerce. He would like to see universal access "but I wouldn't like to see it mandated" through governmental regulations. The elite, like at Harvard, isn't smart enough to figure out what to do with the Net," he said. Instead, he thinks that free access should be encouraged through private initiatives.

Two representatives of the State Department, Esther Roberts and Larry Biro, would argue the case for free access but support the notion of governmental regulation. "It should be like the public library," noted Biro.

"Access would increase people's sense of knowledge," agreed Roberts.

Roberts was also in favor of free access for the sake of "breaking down stereotypes [of the State Department] -- knowledge of what we do takes away some of the mystique," she commented.

Scott Bradner, a founder of the Internet and a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Net's standard-setting body, said emphatically, "It has to be paid for somehow." He peered at the questioner with a look of disbelief.

"Someone has to compensate the providers," he explained, "the same as with the telephone or television. 'Free' comes out of our taxes. There's absolutely no way around it," he concluded.

User power

While not everyone is in agreement on free access, nearly all those questioned were of one mind when it came to pondering how much the Internet was being shaped by its users.

Users "vote with their mouse," snapped Maxwell, as if the answer were so obvious as to be ridiculous to comment on.

"Users are completely defining" the Internet, said Ghosh, pointing to Netscape: "People use it, so it's a very successful product."

"Users are the ones creating and shaping the Internet," commented Messer.

Bradner insisted that "the users decide what they want. You speak with your purchasing decision."

McGee, by far the most philosophical of all those at the conference's opening reception, said, "By their sheer numbers, the end user has a tremendous amount of power, but they haven't quite grasped that yet. . . . It's like a dance between Internet users and [servers] -- the [users'] power is in the interplay between these groups."

When people get together on the Net, McGee said, "they can create it, just by talking to each other about what they want."