How could anyone have been so wrong?
On one hand, the article is simply a reaction to the majority of “computer pundits” who correctly assessed the internet’s potential. Certainly, some of these futurists were overly optimistic. And some weren’t optimistic enough (take Bill Gates’ most famous quote, “640K ought to be enough for anybody”).
However, Clifford Stoll really got it wrong. Really wrong.
“Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.”
Let’s be fair. I’m sure Stoll wasn’t the only person who doubted Negroponte’s assertion. And to some extent, these doubters were correct to be skeptical: it wasn’t until the Kindle became “accepted” (if you can even use that word among the swarths of people who proclaim, “I like holding a real book”) around 2008-2009 that buying books and newspapers over the internet became a common practice. And the technology to buy books and newspapers online was viable back in 1995 when Stoll wrote this article. Written word is one of the only things those old modems could deliver in under ten minutes. Online music marketing required much more bandwidth, and that caught on much sooner. People were very resistant to the practice of buying books online (and some still are).
But, if history has shown us anything, it’s that resistance doesn’t last long against convenience and good economic sense.
Here are predictions about the year 2000 from the Ladies Home Journal, December, 1900:
Some are very optimistic. There weren’t as many Americans, no South American countries were clamoring to join the Union, and there are still plenty of street cars in major cities (especially Los Angeles). Some are just absurd: there are still mosquitos and flies; C, X, and Q are still confounding ESL students; and, although “strawberries as large as apples” are probably possible with today’s genetic technology, I don’t think there’s a huge market demand for such produce.
However, the average American was taller. Some trains actually run faster than 150 miles per hour. Cars are cheaper now than horses were then. Although a university education isn’t free to everyone, we do take for granted the incredible advances in scholarship and diversity in schools. When this article was written, my own University had been functioning for fifty years without granting a single scholarship to an underprivileged student.
And, in its way, the article prophesied the Internet.
American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient.
This one sends chills down my spine:
“If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.”
Or a minute later.
The future is complicated. It’s easy to beat up on Stoll, but he was simply being cautious among a sea of rapturous technophiles.
Conversely, it’s easy to be impressed by Mr. Watkin’s list of predictions, but his predictions range from correct in an abstract, approximate sense to wildly, horribly incorrect.
Let this be a lesson: be skeptical about everything you read regarding the future. Nobody knows tomorrow too intimately.
