Fizz_gig

Hi there, Firstly I think this blog is a useful idea that has potential, though it will suffer from many of the advantages and disadvantages that all on-line media suffer from. I have worked in quite senior positions in ISPs for 3 years and spent over 10 years in IT running my own IT security consultancy firm. One important thing to remember is that the internet is essentially anarchic - by that I mean "without leaders" rather than "without rules". To use a biological metaphor, people on the internet follow herd behaviours in that they tend to "clump" around certain popular sites and causes for a certain period of time before that site or cause becomes too large, splits apart, and then the people "clump" around another site or cause. Again, like in a herd, if someone stands in front of that "clump" and becomes an obstruction, that "clump" will just flow around that obstruction. This flow is lead by the mavericks that always exist in any group of people, and they pass the information about on how to flow around that obstruction until it becomes common knowledge. Attempting to stop that flow is pointless, doomed to failure and essentially futile because it is impossible to control the flow of information. You may be able to block one source of information about the blockage, but it will be discovered by another maverick who will then pass the instructions anew. The key advantages of the internet is the rapid flow of information from one, to another - regardless of whether that information is directly related to 'bricks and mortar' businesses, videos, file sharing, or computer games. That being said, like all technology, the internet is just a multiplier. Calling it "the digital economy" actually limits the concept, semantically putting it in a different category to every other aspect of the implied 'real' economy. This is most definitely not the case. It is just a different means of doing the same thing - buying and selling services and resources. It is as essential to all businesses and individuals now as the mobile phone became 10 years ago and the land-line telephone was before that, and the telegram and letter before that still. The flow of information has always been critical to businesses - there are entire industries developed on information analysis and presentation. Now though with greater computing power and much, much greater access to data the ways that information can be collected, collated and arranged is exponentially greater. The main strategic difference between the internet and other methods of data exchange is that with the technology in use now, everything that is not a physical thing can be reduced to data. Data is just a bunch of zeros and ones that can be reproduced eternally and copied infinitely for almost no additional cost. That is its strength and its weakness. It is a strength in that it means that the distribution costs for data fall to miniscule levels. It also means that all industries that have traditionally relied on a distribution model to provide their income or cash flow are almost immediately losing the majority of their revenue. This is the single biggest problem that is affecting the motion picture and recording industries as their business model relies on making money through distribution of physical things. They have moved from selling music or a movie or a TV show as a performance to selling it as a product that is attached to a physical media. As such, they are having a great deal of problems at the moment as now the product that they are producing is disconnected from the media that they are selling. This is not going to change and all the complaints of those in both industries is only going to delay the inevitable. The business model that was phenomenally successful in previous economic environments is now fundamentally flawed. If it is not changed, it will cause great pain. Please note, this will not stop those industries from producing what they do best - making high quality entertainment products that are enjoyed by many, it just means that they have to change their business model in order to gain a return on investment. To gain the greatest benefit to the Australian population, there has to be better access to the internet. This means as well as faster/cheaper access, it also means less blocks and bottle necks. Coming from an ISP background, I know how problematic this is. The biggest limitations are Australia's relatively low population and extremely low population density. Data signals over any medium, be it copper wire, optical, or whatever, are limited by the laws of physics. Having few people spread out over large areas drastically increases the cost to lay out the physical media by which data can flow to the users. Being separated from the rest of the world by large oceans increases the costs for purchasing transmission lines that have to be recouped through data costs, making data quite expensive when compared to the rest of the world.