World of Ends

Doc Searls and David Weinberger wrote a great article about what the internet is an how to stop mistaking it for something else.

This is great stuff because it explains the virtues of the end-to-end internet architecture in simple terms. There are still a lot of people who do not get this.

Last week, I visited a meeting of the Amsterdam New Media Association where Geert Wind spoke about plans of the Amsterdam city counsel to fund fibre to the home. I was surprised by the number of people who were convinced that the project would definately fail if the plan did not include the development of special services for this network. Essentially, they believed that almost nobody would want to pay a monthly fee of € 50,00 for 10 Mbps internet access if there would not be any added value.

These people have been professionally involved with the internet for years, but they still do not seem to get it.