Franck Martin wrote:
The time is to move from 35% (early adopters) to 60% (beginning of mass
distribution), not from 0% to 60%.
Yes, as it was exemplified for phone use: 30 years to move from 35% in 1920
to 60% in 1950.
To those who were surprised by my posting, please note that I quoted
official 1999/2000 US Census Bureau data. These are not bogus numbers,
nor a political view, nor data from "who invented the Internet".
But when the US Census woke up in 1997 to find that the Internet had
mushroomed overnight -- and started to collect data on Internet use --
households with Internet access were already 18%. However, how about
before 1997?
Well, before 1997 Internet use was so marginal in terms of socio-
economical consequences that the US Census did not even bothered
to collect data on its use!
The conclusion is clear. Our Most Valuable experience before 1997 has
limited applicability. Thus, IMO, it doesn't help the IETF, nor the Internet
as we have it today, to use arguments such as "The only problem with that
assessment is 25 years of Internet experience, all of which was based of no
conformance verification, but quite a bit of effectiveness."
What was effective 25 or even 10 years ago is surely important but we need
to recognize that it has limited application to today's Internet. For example,
it seems that we need (and for some time already) to introduce a public
non-conformance list (NCL). The NCL would make no promises to the future
(unlike a conformance list), would not imply liability (because it exerts no
power),
and could help make a good selling point even for those companies listed in
the NCL -- "Look, we had six NC complaints and we fixed them all! Our product
has no current NC complaint."
So, as a practical proposal, I would welcome comments from anyone who
would like to co-author an ID on this topic. I already got some 30-year
experience feedback that could be useful ;-)
Cheers,
Ed Gerck
On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Ed Gerck wrote:
The Internet broke the 60 percent penetration barrier in the U.S. faster
than any other medium. For example, some 35 percent of the U.S.
population had phone use in 1920, but penetration didn't reach 60
percent until 1950. With the Internet, a comparable increase in
usage only took two years.